Analysis of Business and Technology Topics

This assignment involves analyzing multiple research papers on business and technology topics. The papers cover a range of subjects, from the impact of social media on brands to the politics of commoditization in global ICT industries. The assignment requires identifying key themes, authors, and publications, as well as providing a summary of each paper's main points. The goal is to demonstrate an understanding of the complex relationships between business and technology, and how they shape our world.

Running Head: Organizational Behavior & Management
Apple & Nokia
Organizational Behavior & Management
Essay

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Essay
Nokia was one of the largest mobile phone manufacturers of the world before selling off its business
first to Microsoft at 7 Billion USD, and then to HMD for an undisclosed amount. Nokia was doing
extremely well in the 80s, 90s, until the mid-2000’s when things started falling off the plate for Nokia
and it stumbled like a pack of cards(Laamanen, Lamberg & Vaara, 2016). A lot of articles and journals
have been written on what exactly went wrong with Nokia, how a company which was at the Zenith
of success can dig a hole so deep in earth that it could never make a comeback from its failures. By
2007 Nokia was manufacturing more than 65% of the mobile phones sold on the planet earth with
its Symbian mobile operating system and was a clear market leader in the mobile space (Sumanthi,
2017). Nokia was selling huge number of mobile phones globally due to its strong body type, longer
battery life, industry experience, quality products, pricing strategy and attractive designs. It was the
era post 2007 which saw the evolution of Application for Mobile phones which changed the entire
ecosystem of the mobile phone industry. A lot of players started emerging out of nowhere;
companies like Samsung, Micromax, Oppo, Intex, Huawei and many other started giving a tough
fight to Nokia. The single largest trouble with the Nokia was its inability to design an operating
system which could work well with the mobile application and have a seamless integration with the
mobile phone. This is touted as the biggest reason which led to the bankruptcy of Nokia and
emergence of other players in the Industry (Rooij, 2015).
During the era of Nokia, Apple was to be found nowhere, the company was doing its best to make
products which customers would buy instinctively, but were really not able to match up to the

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standards of Nokia, Nokia was clearly leading the way. But, in the year 2007, Apple suddenly came in
the market with its revolutionary I-phones and created a disruption in the entire market phone
industry. People were seen to be standing in long queues to buy an I-phone and suddenly the wind
turned the direction towards Apple, and the tech world was just talking about three things: Apple,
Steve Jobs & IPhones. By first quarter of 2013 Apple had captured almost 40% of the US
smartphone market and over 50% of the operating profit in the global handset industry. If figures
have to be believed, Apple was selling 5X phones in comparison to sale of Nokia’s Lumia phones. It
was just a matter of time Apple and other players like Samsung, Sony, Micromax, oppo and MI took
over, which was the moment of death for Nokia. Ios and Android by then has taken over the mobile
operating software and killed Symbian and the nearly extinct Blackberry. Apple was smart to realize
that it was not just the mobile phones, but it was the software which should be leveraged to create
experience for the customers.
Nokia has been criticized a lot by a number of Tech Bloggers, enthusiasts, industry experts and by
some of its own senior leaders, the tone of the message was clear, Nokia’s management predicted
the change in the smartphone market, but really could not come together as a team and work
towards the changing landscape(Hernes & Bytniewski, 2017). The company acknowledged first in
2004, in one of its media release, that the smart phone market is up for a revolution and Nokia
would be leading from the front. However, nothing was done to embrace the change, on the
contrary, the company refused to build partnership with emerging players who wanted Nokia’s
expertise in their mobile phone business. It was the inability of the company to come together and
develop software which would be in sync with the needs of the customer, and would have ensured
sustainability for Nokia. It was the leadership which did not believe what was happening; they were
in a state of shock and did not believe how every company, other than Nokia would move ahead in

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the race (Yun, Won & Park, 2016). In comparison to Nokia, team at Apple under the leadership was
really looking strong. The team at Apple was playing the game by fundamentals, by analysing the
need of the customers, their taste and preferences and based on the market study wanted to design
a product to cater to all the needs of its customers. Steve Job’s leadership, often said as debatable,
but it was his leadership which brought all the department of the companies together, and it was
him who made the entire team work together, with a single vision of putting a better, smarter and a
faster phone with an open system in the hands of the consumers. Nokia failed to respond to Apple,
its Symbian operating system was aging and dying, but the company could not do much about it.
They were really late on switching to windows for help, to revitalize their brand strategy, their
operating system, by then the vote was already casted in favour of Apple and Other Android mobile
phones.
Another aspect of leadership which can be translated from the bankruptcy of Nokia and success of
Apple phone is the inability to understand the pulse of the smartphone audience. Nokia, which was
a tech giant, launched the first smartphone in the market, tested the prototype for touch screen and
internet enabled phones was spending millions and millions on Research and development for the
next big thing, in the process, they forgot the most important component of business, its
customers(Grant, 2016).Apple leveraged its customers, its target audience, it realized the lacunae in
the current smartphone providers and the needs of the customers, and it just bridged the gap and

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brought revolution in the industry(Holt, 2016). Nokia was at heart a hardware company and its
management could not keep up with the pulse of the consumers and focus on software, the inability
of its marketing department to read the consumers was another major reason for its bankruptcy. It
was the management at Nokia, which turned a blind eye towards the changing ecosystem and
refused to acknowledge the problem, they were of the opinion that Nokia’s hardware would
eventually pull back all its lot customers towards the company, but it was simply not the case. By
then, people had already gotten accustom to the platform which made them access application on
their devices in a seamless manner, thus crushing the hopes of Nokia (Streeter, 2015).
Apple was always clear about few things in perspective; they knew that Smartphone business is
evolving in nature, a lot of competition will become the focal point of the industry, software will
dominate, more and more application will be created to enhance the user experience and phones
will get more stylish and aesthetic(Kushida, 2015). Focussing on the vision, Apple created a 5 year
strategy for what kind of products it wants to create for the consumer which will benefit them the
most, following the vision Apple created IPhones and took the market by storm. Apple’s product are
known to be man’s best friend and addictive, the style, designing, attention to details, camera
quality and its subtle branding makes it one of the most comprehensive smartphones in the industry
which was struggling with innovation and were unable to feel the pulse of the people(Lorange &
Rembiszewski,2016). There were a lot of people who said that IPhone was an overnight success, but
in actual it was the hard work of the team standing resolute behind the genius mind of Steve jobs,
they all believed in the vision of its leader and were determined to design something so beautiful
and useful that it brings a disruption in the entire industry. It was Apple who was pioneer in creating
full display touch phones with great pixel resolution and sleek design. Apple not only focussed on
one of few aspects which make a smartphone really smart, on the contrary it went a step ahead and
focussed on all the aspects of the mobile phone to make “The ultimate device” for the users (Apple,
2016).Another brilliant thing which the team at Apple executed and has been criticized initially was
its exclusive closed Apple store for Application and other things. People did not understand the
purpose of doing so, but later realized company did so to provide the user best experience and not
allow the viruses to enter the great device. Nokia failed miserably because it did not have what
Apple had, a clear mission and vision and great leadership (Mitchell, 2014). The leadership at Nokia
was not future looking, they were focussed more on what they have been doing in the past and
wanted to replicate the same strategy for the business sustainability. Although, there were some
really cool products which company created, stylish looks, longer battery and strength in the mobile
phones, sadly, it was not enough for the market. Management at Nokia was spending good amount
of money into their research and development wing, but they were not investing much in marketing

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research. This was one of the major issues why the company failed to create products for the future
and improve the lives of people. It was like missing a big piece from solving a puzzle, the missing
piece being marketing research. Marketing research helps to identify the needs and preference of
the customers, their aspirations, their feedback, their utility for a product and many more; all these
features are greatly useful for creating the right product for them (Kaur & Sharma, 2014). It was a
complete failure of the management to assess the external environment which ultimately led to
failure of the 150 years old company leading to sell off its assets to Microsoft and later to HMD.
Another important aspect which is a critical success factor for the success of Apple’s product is its
strategy of continuous innovation. As explained earlier, Steve jobs was a visionary and an exemplary
leader, he had this unique gift of quickly picking up the smart things in the room and his ability and
passion to create product from a basic idea and sell it further. It was his intuitive thinking; balanced
calculation to mitigate the risks associated with new products that him the biggest innovator on
planet earth (Wang, 2015). If one has to analyse the product of Apple, it can be found how hard the
team worked in collaboration towards sustained innovation. Every person who was employed at
Apple was appreciated from bringing innovation on the table; innovation was the undying spirit at
Apple’s office in Cupertino, California. People were seen discussing ideas, talking of new things, how
to offer something unique to the customers and how to create products which have never been
created. It was the culture of innovation which was one of the driving factors of success for the
company; it was innovation which changed the entire ecosystem of mobile phones for the best
(Divya & Kumar, 2015).Innovation at Apple was pivotal in driving a lot of innovation in the industry
by other players as well. Apple had set an example in front of mobile companies on how to build
products which have actual benefit for the customers. During the era of 2007-13, a lot of innovation
was happening in the mobile phone industry and the front runner leading the innovation was Apple.
On the other end of the spectrum was Nokia, which was not even remotely close to bring innovation
in its product, a lot of experts said that Nokia accepted defeat very early and stopped innovating
knowing android and IOS has taken over the market(Basole, 2016). Its marriage with Microsoft to
build Lumia Phones happened at the time when major share was divided between Apple and other
android players, leaving very little for the new products of Nokia. The innovation took backseat at
Nokia, or it can be said that team at Nokia took too long to innovate which ultimately caused the
debt ridden company to sink in the waters. Satya Nadella, the then CEO of Microsoft in one of his
earlier interviews acknowledged that they failed to understand the pulse of the customers and
miserably failed to innovate, they were relying on the earlier proven success strategies of Nokia, and
continued with them, leading to grand failure of the company(Chung & Park, 2017). More so, the
team at Nokia felt defeat at the hands of Apple and other android players and they gave up, they

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failed to acknowledge that if they roll up their sleeves and start innovating and put all their efforts
on making phone both a utility and an engaging device for the consumers, it would have been just a
matter of time that they would have tasted success. The lack of motivation in the workplace and the
team was again one of the prime reasons that the company could not get back on its feet and
accepted the defeat very soon (Yadav & Maheshwari, 2016).
Towards the end, it can be said that Apple was clear with its vision, which was built on sustained
innovation and the entire company was motivated to drive change in the mobile phone industry. The
KRA of all the employees at Apple was based on creating brilliant products for its target audience.
Employees were motivated to bring this change and be a part of the revolution, the leadership at
Apple did a brilliant job by hiring the best talent, manage them effectively, keep them motivated and
align their individual goals with those of the organization. In comparison, Nokia was unable to
manage its employees; there was the problem of turnover in the company fuelled by their
continuous product failure and failure to innovate. It was the inability of the management to keep
the talent at Nokia motivated and their failure to manage them was a great contributor for its
failure. The vision of Nokia was to connect people and build products for them which would reap
benefits for them; however the same was not translated in form of goals and objectives of the
organization. At one point it was seen that the leadership and the employees were absolutely at
loggerheads which worsened the situation for the failing Nokia. Hence, in a company which is unable
to harvest a good culture, motivate its employees, keep them engaged, shape their attitude and
push them to think of new ideas, the failure of such a company was inevitable.
The essay can be concluded by saying that the strategy at Apple, ideology of the leadership and the
ability to predict the future of mobile phone followed by innovation were some of the reasons of its
success, back then and even now. On the other hand, the inability of Nokia to detect the pulse of its
audience, inability to predict the change in the mobile industry, inability to manage its workers and
manage them and at last inability to innovate better products for the customers was primarily
responsible for the bankruptcy of Nokia.

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