Case Study Description of Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics
The case provides an opportunity for students to develop practical knowledge of the role of operations management in a product recall situation, particularly in an emerging market context. Product recalls are an integral part of supply chain management (SCM). Companies inevitably face a question of when, not if, a recall will be necessary. These situations combine the complexity of operations with the time-urgency of a mission-critical task. The case also provides a rich context to learn about the interaction of SCM, information systems and reverse logistics, and to understand the marketing, logistics and communication challenges faced by a multinational company operating in an emerging market such as India.The case presents the challenge faced by Nokia India in 2007. Nokia had built a strong brand reputation over a ten-year period and was a market leader in the Indian mobile devices. India, incidentally, was also Nokia's second largest market, next only to China. Suddenly, what corporate headquarters considered a routine product advisory for a defective battery, resulted in panic in customers after the Indian media widely publicized the potential dangers that defective batteries could pose.Over a three-month period, Nokia India had to recall a few million batteries and replace them with new ones.The objectives of the case include 1) developing an effective product recall / reverse logistics plan that would ensure preparedness for the challenges and urgent circumstances that might surface in a recall situation, 2) understanding the key criteria for success of product recall systems and 3) understanding the interface of management action and the logistics system under a crisis situation.
Authors :: Charles Dhanaraj, Narendar Sumukadas, P. Fraser Johnson, Monali Malvankar
Swot Analysis of "Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics" written by Charles Dhanaraj, Narendar Sumukadas, P. Fraser Johnson, Monali Malvankar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Recall Nokia facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Crisis management, Emerging markets, Supply chain and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Recall Nokia, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Recall Nokia 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 India: Battery Recall Logistics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Recall Nokia
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Recall Nokia
Strengths Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Recall Nokia in Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Recall Nokia are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Recall Nokia 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 Recall Nokia
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Recall Nokia does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Recall Nokia 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 Recall Nokia in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Recall Nokia is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Recall Nokia 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 Recall Nokia is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Recall Nokia 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 Charles Dhanaraj, Narendar Sumukadas, P. Fraser Johnson, Monali Malvankar 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.
Training and development
– Recall Nokia has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Recall Nokia 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 India: Battery Recall Logistics - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Recall Nokia 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 Recall Nokia in the sector have low bargaining power. Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Recall Nokia to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Recall Nokia 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 India: Battery Recall Logistics HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics, it seems that the employees of Recall Nokia 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Recall Nokia products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Recall Nokia needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Recall Nokia is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Charles Dhanaraj, Narendar Sumukadas, P. Fraser Johnson, Monali Malvankar suggests that, Recall Nokia is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Recall Nokia 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Recall Nokia has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Recall Nokia has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Recall Nokia even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Recall Nokia 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics, in the dynamic environment Recall Nokia has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Recall Nokia has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Recall Nokia has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Opportunities Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics | 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 India: Battery Recall Logistics are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Recall Nokia 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Recall Nokia can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Loyalty marketing
– Recall Nokia has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Recall Nokia can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Recall Nokia can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Recall Nokia 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Recall Nokia can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Recall Nokia can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Recall Nokia operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Recall Nokia in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Recall Nokia 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. Recall Nokia 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Recall Nokia 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 Recall Nokia to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Recall Nokia in the consumer business. Now Recall Nokia can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Recall Nokia 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 Global Business segment.
Threats Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Recall Nokia can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Recall Nokia 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 Recall Nokia business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics, Recall Nokia may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
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. Recall Nokia needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Recall Nokia needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Global Business industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Recall Nokia 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.
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. Recall Nokia 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.
Environmental challenges
– Recall Nokia needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Recall Nokia can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Recall Nokia 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Recall Nokia has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Recall Nokia needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Recall Nokia 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 India: Battery Recall Logistics .
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 Recall Nokia.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nokia India: Battery Recall Logistics 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 India: Battery Recall Logistics 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 India: Battery Recall Logistics 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 India: Battery Recall Logistics 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 India: Battery Recall Logistics 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 Recall Nokia needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
