Nokia’s Technology Strategy As you all know, Nokia was the world’s largest vendor of mobile phones from 1998 to now. One of the reasons this company success is because of the technology strategy. Nokia’s use of technology is a key contributor to the company’s overall business goals. The right technology strategy provides revenue through differentiation, brings cost advantage and a favourable supply environment. It gives access to the right technologies at the right time and also helps shape the future competitive landscape and encourages innovation through openness to benefit consumers.
Nokia aims for technology leadership in all device categories developing the most rewarding consumer experiences that allow people to connect to what matters to them. Success in technology also plays a significant role in enhancing brand reputation. Example the Nokia N95, the company’s latest Nokia Nseries flagship product is a recent example of how technology leadership builds it value. A major focus of Nokia’s technology strategy is to give their customers choice and simplicity and that is keys to delivering the best user experiences.
The company strives for an open technology approach that will encourage and support innovation in the industry, enable fast adoption of new technologies and advance healthy competition. It is very important to make the right technology choices. Nokia’s guiding principle is whether people will use the technology in their everyday lives to connect and share with others. Technologies must to be easy to use, seamless, interconnected and easily integrated. To ensure that new technologies meet people’s needs, Nokia conducts consumer research and studies the ways in which people interact with mobile devices and use technology.
This ‘very human approach to technology’ enables Nokia to bring new products and services to market at the right time and in the right way. The choice of the technologies Nokia offers is strongly rooted in this understanding of customer needs and aspirations, leading to the best user experience and widest choice. As an example, in mobile TV, Nokia offers end-to-end solutions to deliver content-streaming via cellular on-demand or downloaded, using vodcasts over WLAN or broadcast live with DVB-H Nokia’s business is supported by five technology priority areas. That is device echnology leadership, smart connectivity, leading web evolution, user experience leadership, and providing the preferred innovation platform. These priorities are fundamental to the company to enable Nokia’s growth and to meet consumer demand. Though not exclusive, they reflect Nokia’s core strengths representing areas that are crucial for maintaining success and growth in the future. There are many examples of how Nokia is applying these priority areas to deliver value on a day to day basis to create leading products that set it apart from the competition.
The rapid rise in digital convergence and the breakthroughs in areas such as power management, materials, mechanics, camera, optics and electronics mean that today’s smartphones can support several features of single product categories on one device by combining them for example, phone, camera, music player, video, computer games, and GPS. Nokia’s technology focus drives and enables this increasing multifunctionality. In addition to products for consumers, one key focus is on the enterprise sector and the E-series range that offers complete mobile office solutions from devices optimized for business use to firewalls to mobile email solutions.
All are designed to make business more effective and productive through more efficient use of mobile technologies. Nokia is also active in standardization organizations and a strong advocate of open standards because of the opportunities they create for innovation, interoperability and new business benefiting ultimately the whole industry and, most importantly, the consumers . Nokia has a strong track record in delivering technology market firsts.
Examples include: world’s first GSM call was made with a Nokia mobile phone, the first dual-mode tri-band handset for WCDMA and GSM/EDGE networks globally (Nokia 6630), the first Wi-Fi certified mobile device (both cellular and WLAN networks, Nokia 9500 Communicator), the first commercial DVB-H device (Nokia N92) and lastly the first commercial service management solution for DVB-H (Mobile Broadcast rel 3. 0). Through our reading and discussion it’s seem that there is integration between technology strategy and corporate strategy in Nokia’s cooperation.
This can be prove that the entry of the Finnish company, Nokia, into the consumer electronics market resulting in a signi? cant reorientation of the company. It describes the internationalisation of the Nokia Group from a Finnish company, to a Nordic company, to a European company and ? nally to a global player in world markets. The case raises three main questions. The case can be used to explore the dif? culties of integration in terms of management, culture and strategy.
