Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper?
In 2003, Nokia was the dominant maker of cell phones around the world. It had more than twice the global handset market share of its closest competitor, Motorola. While in a position of strength in 2003, the company faced large challenges in the immediate future. For example, the so-called third generation (3G) of mobile technology was experiencing a slow arrival and uncertain consumer reception. In addition, there was uncertainty about which type of 3G technology would dominate. Perhaps a larger strategic issue for Nokia, however, was its plan for its operating system. In the past, other handset makers were willing to adopt Nokia's popular handset operating system. By 2003, however, Microsoft has entered the market with its own mobile operating system. As mobile devices become more robust, e.g., incorporating Web-enabled phones with PDAs, the importance of mobile operating systems increases. How can Nokia contend with the entry of the extremely well-funded Microsoft into its core market?
Swot Analysis of "Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper?" written by Robert A. Burgelman, Philip Meza includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Nokia Handset facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT, Strategic planning and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nokia Handset, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nokia Handset operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nokia Handset
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Nokia Handset
Strengths Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nokia Handset in Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Nokia Handset has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Nokia Handset to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nokia Handset in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Nokia Handset in the sector have low bargaining power. Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Nokia Handset to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Nokia Handset is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Nokia Handset
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Nokia Handset does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Nokia Handset is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Nokia Handset has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Nokia Handset has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Nokia Handset is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Robert A. Burgelman, Philip Meza can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Nokia Handset is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Nokia Handset in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Nokia Handset is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Nokia Handset is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Nokia Handset is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Nokia Handset 's lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Nokia Handset has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper?, it seems that the employees of Nokia Handset don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper?, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? HBR case study mentions - Nokia Handset takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Nokia Handset has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Nokia Handset products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Nokia Handset needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Nokia Handset, firm in the HBR case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Nokia Handset supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Nokia Handset vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Nokia Handset is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Nokia Handset needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Nokia Handset to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Nokia Handset needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Opportunities Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Nokia Handset to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Nokia Handset to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Nokia Handset can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Nokia Handset has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nokia Handset to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nokia Handset can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Nokia Handset is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nokia Handset to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Nokia Handset can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Nokia Handset can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Nokia Handset can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Strategy & Execution segment.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Nokia Handset in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Nokia Handset to increase its market reach. Nokia Handset will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Nokia Handset has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Nokia Handset to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? case study. Nokia Handset can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Nokia Handset to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Nokia Handset can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Nokia Handset operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Threats Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Nokia Handset with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nokia Handset can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Nokia Handset needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Nokia Handset will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Nokia Handset demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Nokia Handset high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Nokia Handset business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Nokia Handset can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? .
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Nokia Handset.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Nokia Handset can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Nokia Handset
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Nokia Handset.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nokia Handset is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Nokia Handset in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Nokia Beyond 2003: A Mobile Gatekeeper? is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Nokia Handset needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
