Innovation and Technology Project: Nokia's Design Thinking Model

This project examines Nokia's decline in the mobile phone market and proposes a revival strategy utilizing the Design Thinking model. The assignment begins with an introduction outlining Nokia's past dominance and subsequent challenges from competitors like Apple and Samsung. It then applies the five stages of the Design Thinking process: empathize (understanding user needs), define (framing the problem), ideate (generating solutions), prototype (creating scaled-down versions), and test (evaluating the solutions). Each stage is detailed, providing insights into how Nokia can regain market share through innovation and a focus on user-centric design. The project concludes by emphasizing the importance of innovation for Nokia's future success, referencing relevant literature to support the analysis. The project aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of Nokia's situation and propose actionable solutions based on the Design Thinking framework.

Running head: INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
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Author Note

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Introduction
In this essay, the aim of the discussion will be to provide solutions to the issues faced
by Nokia by the help of Design Thinking Model. It will help to analyze the situations
properly and effectively. Design Thinking is a design framework which helps to provide
solution-based approaches in order to solve the problems. It is very much useful to tackle
complex situations which are not properly defined.
Design Thinking Model
The model was first designed in the year 1969 by Herbert Simon (Chen and
Venkatesh 2013).
1. Empathize – In this step, Nokia needs to understand the needs of the human
involved in the brand value of Nokia. Here, the company needs to have a leader who will
help the organization to bounce back from the problems which the company is facing from
the last few years. They need to focus on the problems identified by them, and strategize their
plans accordingly which will help them to regain their brand value, as the company already
enjoys a high recall value. This will help them to capture the market share and easily and help
in warning revenues for the company.
2. Define (the Problem) – Here, Nokia needs to re-frame as well as define the
problem in human-centric ways. It starts with the people around the company for whom the
company will construct the design and ends providing of new solutions that will be tailor
made and will be enable to suit the needs and wants of the people. This is the stage where the
company will analyze the problems and combine them which will actually help to define
effectively the problems as the problem statements. This will help the designers to build the
model in a brand new way and as per the needs and wants of the people, like the features,

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functions and other elements. In one word, it will help to re-establish the brand (Ojasalo and
Ojasalo 2015).
3. Ideate – This stage helps to create a bunch of ideas in thinking sessions. In this
stage, the designers are totally prepared to generate ideas. The problems have been identified
before and now they should be solved. Some new innovative ideas should be generated, so
that the brand gets back the market which they have enjoyed few years ago. New and fresh
solutions should be created, along with the operating system which is existing in the market.
It will not be difficult for the company to acquire customers from the market as the brand still
enjoys the age old brand equity. They can rely on the high brand re-call value towards the
product and capitalize on that to both grow the company and earn revenue, which will help in
to gain more innovative ideas for the product.
4. Prototype – In this stage, there is the need to adopt the hands-on approach in terms
of prototyping. Here, the designers will manufacture and produce a range of scaled down
versions of the product, with particular as well as innovative features within the product
(Chaplinsky et al 2017). This will help them to consider the difficulty or solutions identified
in the earlier stages. This can be certified within a team, or in other areas within the
organization, or as a little group of people outside of the team related to designing. This
preliminary or experimental stage helps to focus on the best possible solution for all the
problems identified earlier of the company of Nokia. The solutions are enforced within the
prototypes one by one, and either they are accepted, or improved and reviewed, or rejected on
the basis of the experience of the users. At the end of this stage, the designers of Nokia will
enrich themselves with a better idea of the constitutional forces to the product along with the
problems present with the company.

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5. Test – In the final stage, the company ultimately develops a prototype solution to
the problems identified in the earlier stages. Here, the designer test the ultimate product
vigorously by using the best possible ways focused in the earlier stage. Though this is the
final stage, where the results produced during the testing phase may be needed to identify one
or more problem after using the understanding of the users, the conditions of the use and the
way by which the people think, feel and behave. Changes are made also in this stage, if
needed, just to get a full and final product which can be accepted overall by the customers
(Majanoja, Linko and Leppänen 2017).
Conclusion
From the above essay, it can be concluded that Nokia has many strengths and
opportunities which can be capitalized by the company along with the high brand re-call
value of the company. The one and only thing which is needed is the innovation. With all
these factors, the company can again find its own place in the marketplace.

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Reference
Chaplinsky, S., Marston, F.C., Chaplinsky, S. and Marston, F.C., 2017. Nokia OYJ:
Financing the WP Strategic Plan. Darden Business Publishing Cases, pp.1-25.
Chen, S. and Venkatesh, A., 2013. An investigation of how design-oriented organisations
implement design thinking. Journal of Marketing Management, 29(15-16), pp.1680-1700.
Majanoja, A.M., Linko, L. and Leppänen, V., 2017. Global corrective action preventive
action process and solution: insights at the Nokia Devices operation unit. International
Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 20(1), pp.29-47.
Ojasalo, K. and Ojasalo, J., 2015. Adapting business model thinking to service logic: an
empirical study on developing a service design tool. The Nordic School, 309.
Shah, S.J., Li, Z., Das, B., Ullah, R., Shah, A.M., Khan, S. and Al Qudah, N.F., 2018,
January. Would affective commitment be enough to earn Nokia back the lost supremacy?
In Proceedings of the 2018 2nd International Conference on Management Engineering,
Software Engineering and Service Sciences (pp. 43-47). ACM.
Vuori, T.O. and Huy, Q.N., 2016. Distributed attention and shared emotions in the innovation
process: How Nokia lost the smartphone battle. Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(1),
pp.9-51.