Applied Management: Analysis of Nokia's Global Business Environment

This article provides an analysis of Nokia's global business environment, including a comparison of cultural dimensions between New Zealand and India using Hofstede's theory. It also discusses Nokia's strategy for operating in global markets, the 6C model of social media, and the response rate as a metric for communication. Subject: Applied Management, Course Code: N/A, Course Name: N/A, College/University: N/A

Running head: APPLIED MANAGEMENT
APPLIED MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Answer to Question 1......................................................................................................................2
Answer to Question 2......................................................................................................................4
Answer to Question 3......................................................................................................................5
Answer to Question 4 (Part A)........................................................................................................6
Answer to Question 4 (Part B).........................................................................................................7
Answer to Question 4 (Part C).........................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Answer to Question 1
The different countries operating in the global business environment tend to operate in a
different manner from one another and with respect to this, it becomes considerably important
for any business which is operating in both the environments to see to it that they look out for
both business cultures and take decisions accordingly (Saleem & Larimo, 2017). For this
analysis, the cultural environment of New Zealand will be compared to that of India using the
Hofstede`s cultural dimension.
Power Distance
This dimension of the Hofstede’s theory measures the extent to which power in a country
is distributed and that power is in reality not distributed equally. The score of New Zealand in
this dimension is considerably low and they tend to believe that the managers are easily
accessible and their reliance on the employees is also considerably high (Favaretto, Dihl, Barreto
& Musse, 2016). However, India scores considerably high in this dimension which means that
they prefer hierarchy and like the work to be delegated. The culture of Nokia is also highly
independent whereby the different employees are allowed adequate independence and the power
is decentralized.
Individualism
This dimension checks the level of dependency which exists in a country at large. With a
score of 79, New Zealand can be stated to be an individualistic culture where the society is
loosely knit and people tend to look out for themselves (Marshall, 2014). In India, the score is
intermediate and even here the preference for a closely knit society is present. It is same in the
case on Nokia whereby the relationship between the employer and the employee is based on
mutual benefits and continence.

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Figure 1: The Hofstede comparison between India and New Zealand
(Source: Hofstede, 2017).
Masculinity
The masculinity aspect aims to check the measure by which the society is driven by
success and competition whereas the feminine aspect of the society means values take a larger
place in the organization at large (Perrin, 2015). The score of New Zealand in this dimension is
58 and it can thereby be stated to be a masculine society driven by success and achievement.
India is also a masculine society with a score of 57 and is based on competition whereby success
is taken to be an important factor or judgement. Nokia takes its culture from Finland and the
people in the firm believe on working in harmony just like in India.
Uncertainty Avoidance
This dimension of the Hofstede theory measures the extent to which the members of a
society feel threatened by unknown situations and are ready to take risks. New Zealand has an
intermediate score in this dimension which does not show a preference. By scoring 40 India
reflects that people believ in taking risks and and people believe to take considerable actions. In
the same manner, the different employees at Nokia tend to avoid any ambiguity and this is the
reason that its approach towards the innovation has been so limited.

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Long Term Orientation
The long term orientation tends to measure the manner in which the society maintains a
link with its past along with the future. The socialites scoring low here tend to prefer maintaining
long term traditions as compared to those who score high (Hofstede, 2017). New Zealand scores
a low score of 33 in this aspect which means that they are a normative society with a sense of
strong traditionalism. Unlike New Zealand the Indian culture believes in Karma and there exists
acceptance in the society and this greatly reflects for Nokia whereby there is a strong emphasis
on culture and traditions
Indulgence
The last dimension is indulgence which means that the extent to which the people as
present in a society tend to give away to their impulses and desires. Where the control is weak it
is known as an indulgence whereas when it’s strong it is known as Restraint. The score of New
Zealand is high and hence, they are Indulgent and the people enjoy their impulses and enjoy their
life. India can be stated to be a rather restrained country where duty comes first. This can be
reflected in Nokia where they believe in a strong work life balance.
Answer to Question 2
When a company operates in a global environment it is very important for it to ensure
that it is following a strategy which suits its overall objective along with ensuring that it is able to
maintain its standardized positioning. However, after the analysis of the annual reports of the
countries which are dealing with Nokia it can be mentioned that originally in Finland, Nokia
follows a standardized strategy whereby their products are either based on competitive pricing or
edge cutting innovative technology (Nokia.com., 2018). Moreover, it can be noted that Nokia
believes in adaptability as well and understands that a particular technology which works in India
might not necessarily workout someplace else and it is for this reason that it customizes its
product based on the population and the environment in its targeted country and adjust the size
and product features as per the country (Rallapalli & Montgomery, 2015). For example, to
protect the phone from dust, the company designs its product as per that consideration in
countries in India, Pakistan, and other related Pacific countries. Moreover, it has designed the

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additional features and phone design as per the New Zealand target market and with respect to
this, Nokia adopts a mix of Standardized as well as adaptable strategy.
Answer to Question 3
When a company decides to expand strategically into newer markets it needs to ensure
that it forms a good communication as well as product strategy which will then go a long way in
assisting the company to decide the kind of approach it wants to follow for itself. The different
strategies available to Nokia are as follows:
 Product and Communications extension (Dual extension): The given strategy is an
extreme one whereby Nokia would choose to market a product which is standardized in
nature by making use of a communications strategy. For example, the early entrants into
the international market will opt for a given set of approach.
 Product Extension – Communications Adaptation: The second strategy aims to ensure
that the differences in the environment are respected and hence, the same product is
advertised by making use of new and customized advertising campaigns in order to
ensure long term success (Aalto.fi ,2018). For example, Levis using this approach to sell
the same denim with different cultural tags and communication strategies.
 Product Adaptation – Communications Extension: This strategy is the third adaptation
strategy alternatively, if Nokia aims to choose this strategy then it may bring about a
change in their product but adopt a standardized communication strategy (Weinstein &
Pohlman, 2015). British Petroleum tends to use this strategy whereby it changes the
product components but then it tends to use its standardized marketing strategy for its
growth.
 Product and Communications Adaptation - Dual Adaptation: In this strategy, the firm
does not make a single change but instead aims to alter its product features as well as its
communications strategy (Olson, Slater, Hult & Olson, 2018). In this manner their
approach can be totally different and thereby cause a profound impact on the employees.
 Product Invention: The last strategy is the product invention where the company aims to
create a product with a global scope rather than for a single country. Black and Decker
makes use of the given strategy in order to ensure long term success.

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Suggested strategy for Nokia:
It is suggested that Nokia makes use of a Dual Adaptation strategy whereby it makes a
change in the product as well as the communication strategy at large (Lacoste, 2016). This way
they will be able to cater to the specific needs of the new market and gain a larger audience.
Answer to Question 4 (Part A)
Figure 2: The 6C model of Social Media
(Source: Marshall, 2014).
The 6C model of Social Media tends to look out for the six major aspects of the social
media page in order to analyze whether the content of Nokia is good or not. The social media
channel which has been used for the purpose of analysis is Facebook (Mazanec, Crotts, Gursoy
& Lu, 2015). The six different aspects which are analyzed are as follows:
Company:
The company name is Nokia and it is present on Facebook with the name Nokia itself.
The reason that it has been labelled as Nokia on the different social media websites tends to act
as an advantage for the overall welfare of the brand popularity. The Nokia has around 13 million
followers on Facebook which is a considerably good number of followers for Facebook as a
social media channel.
Content:

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The content which is present in the social media channel is relating to the new products
and services which is provided by the brand (Nokia.com. , 2018). Along with this, Nokia comes
up with various new offers and innovative programs which intend to attract the different
customers and seeks to ensure that the content creates a pull which will attract more followers
and create sustained demand for the products.
Community:
The community refers to the group of followers for the brand Nokia. There are 13 million
followers of Nokia on Facebook who are constantly updated with the brand and tend to follow
the posts of the company carefully. Moreover, they tend to ensure that they promote the best
practices about the brand and has an ardent group of consumers. These community members also
include the suppliers, sellers and marketing.
Customers:
The customers are the purchasers of the brand who tend to purchase the product which
Nokia tends to take out (Nokia.com. ,2018). Moreover, these customers have been a fan of the
brand since a very long time and with respect to this, it is very important to understand that the
brand constantly is required to post content which attracts the customers at large.
Conversations:
The conversations refer to the conversation which takes place between the company and
the different members of the community. It is suggested that Nokia is keener on this conversation
at large and tends to engage considerably with the different members of the community which
will then assist them to maintain strong relationships with them.
Control:
Control refers to the tap which takes place between the activities of Nokia in the social media
website. On facebook the Nokia brand has to take into consideration that they keep a control on
its checks and that the conversations are analyzed in order to ensure proper strategies for the
firm.

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Answer to Question 4 (Part B)
Social media
site- Facebook
New Zealand India
Site details Yes No yes No
Clearly
identifies the
purpose of the
site
 
Has titles,
descriptions
and visuals that
resonate with
the audience
 
Answers users’
questions
effectively
 
Encourages
audience
engagement
 
Makes it easy to
share, befriend
and connect
 
Has a sense of
community
 
In the given analysis based on Fraser and Dutta`s social media categories, it can be seen
that the New Zealand page of Nokia has not been doing that well and that with respect to this, it
needs to ensure that they engage in active engagement with the crowd and build up a good
community (Facebook.com. ,2018). In the Indian page, the page has been adequately built with a

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large number of followers and a large customer base which tends to ensure that the different
members of the community are satisfied with the performance of Nokia at large.
Answer to Question 4 (Part C)
The Response rate can be defined as the key measurement of the number of people who
tend to respond to the advertisements and communication calls as laid down by the company at
large. Nokia as a brand offers various advertisements to the different consumers and if the
response in the form of the number of likes on the social media page, the comments and the
conversations are high then the response rate is taken to be quite good and accurate(Gerbaudo,
2018). The marketers often take this measure as their communication metrics. The different
companies tend to measure the response rate by dividing the number of recipients who react to a
post in the form of an offer by the total amount of recipients which are kept in a given space.
With respect to Nokia`s Facebook page in New Zealand it can be stated that Nokia`s page
there needs to ensure that it tends to engage in adequate offers and conversations with the
audience in order to ensure a higher response rate. As the social media websites are largely
concerned with response and its impact, the response rate is considered to be a good metric of the
measurement of communication.

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References
Aalto.fi (2018) Nokia [online]. Available at:
https://web.lib.aalto.fi/fi/old/yrityspalvelin/pdf/1996/enokia.pdf (Retrieved on: 19 Oct.
2018).
Facebook.com. (2018). Nokia [online]. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/nokia/
Favaretto, R. M., Dihl, L., Barreto, R., & Musse, S. R. (2016, September). Using group
behaviors to detect hofstede cultural dimensions. In Image Processing (ICIP), 2016 IEEE
International Conference on (pp. 2936-2940). IEEE.
Gerbaudo, P. (2018). Tweets and the streets: Social media and contemporary activism. Pluto
Press
Hofstede, G. (2017). Cultural Dimensions-Country Comparison.
Lacoste, S. (2016). Perspectives on social media ant its use by key account managers. Industrial
Marketing Management, 54, 33-43.
Marshall, G. (2014). Marketing management. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Pearson
Mazanec, J. A., Crotts, J. C., Gursoy, D., & Lu, L. (2015). Homogeneity versus heterogeneity of
cultural values: An item-response theoretical approach applying Hofstede's cultural
dimensions in a single nation. Tourism Management, 48, 299-304.
Nokia.com. (2018) News releases [online]. Available at:
https://www.nokia.com/en_int/news/releases/2018/07/26/nokia-corporation-financial-
report-for-q2-and-half-year-2018 (Retrieved on: 19 Oct. 2018).
Nokia.com. (2018) Nokia corporation financial report. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.nokia.com/en_int/news/releases/2018/07/26/nokia-corporation-financial-
report-for-q2-and-half-year-2018 (Retrieved on: 19 Oct. 2018).

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Olson, E. M., Slater, S. F., Hult, G. T. M., & Olson, K. M. (2018). The application of human
resource management policies within the marketing organization: The impact on business
and marketing strategy implementation. Industrial Marketing Management, 69, 62-73.
Perrin, A. (2015). Social media usage. Pew research center, 52-68.
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perspectives for the 1990s (pp. 73-77). Springer, Cham.
Saleem, S., & Larimo, J. (2017). Hofstede cultural framework and advertising research: An
assessment of the literature. In Advances in Advertising Research (Vol. VII) (pp. 247-
263). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Weinstein, A., & Pohlman, R. A. (2015). Customer value: a new paradigm for marketing
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