FACTORS BEHIND NOKIA’S DOWNFALL:

A CASE STUDY

I. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

One of the most important innovations that have been made is the invention and
development of mobile phones. Mobile phone industries continuously seek for the
improvement that they can execute to meet their customers wants and needs.
Recently, competition within the market of mobile phones grows because of the
company’s aim, and that is to strengthen their position in the market.

As the demand in mobile phone increases, the competition against mobile phone
industry also increases. Leading model phone brands have their own strategies to
make their products popular and unique. They keep on upgrading and developing the
features of their products and also they keep on inventing a new phone model that
they could offer to their consumer.

Nowadays, many businesses failed because of having an ineffective management,

wherein they are unwilling to accept changes. Through innovation the company can
stabilize the status of their business in the market and it could also help a company to
achieve its success. Although all entrepreneurs are interested in creating successful
ventures, most entrepreneurs fail because the outcome of new venture is uncertain
(Knight, 1921; Ucbasaran, Shepherd, Lockett, and Lylon, 2013).

Business failure has been defined in a broad and narrow definition. According to
the research study entitled “Business Failure and Entrepreneurship: Three Essays on
the Effects of the Cost of Failure”, broad definition considers business failure as the
discontinuity of ownership, which includes the business exit reasons due to poor
economic performance, difficulty to find resource providers, personal reasons
including retirement and selling a business for profit. However, the narrow definition

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considers business failure only as the discontinuity of the business due to bankruptcy
or insolvency (Singh et al., 2007; Ucbasaran et al., 2013).
Furthermore, innovation also has an important contribution in every aspect of
business, without it a business would possibly fail. Bringing innovation in the
business can help us to increase our profit and gives our business an advantage to
grow.

II. THE PROBLEMS

As years goes by, I notice that the phenomenal growth of mobile phone industry
became uncontrollable. Especially in this generation, mobile phone is really in
demand. Before, mobile phones allow users to make and receive calls, but today’s
mobile phone is far different because they offers new features such as the camera,
games, and browsing. The mobile phone becomes an integral part of people’s
everyday lives. They value it a lot because they found it useful not only as a medium
of communication but also as a device that could help them in many possible ways
because they can undertake the activities that is performed by computers and laptops.
This provokes industries to continue the innovation and development of their product.
Just like today’s successful mobile phone brands such as Apple, Samsung, Huawei,
Vivo, Oppo, LG followed by ZTE, Alcatel and Lenovo (MBA Skool), they make
progress with their product to make it on top among competitors. But what caught my
attention is why Nokia not on the list of successful mobile phone brand because as far
as I know, Nokia is one of the most popular mobile phone brands.

As I do my research, I found out that Nokia used to be the pioneer brand and that
it also used to be the best-selling mobile phone brand in the world. It leads in the
market wherein its rival like Samsung became unnoticeable by the consumer. But the
advantages that it has also became the reason why the business failed. Observers
found three reasons behind Nokia’s downfall. First is, Nokia’s technology was

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inferior to Apple’s. Second is the arrogance among top-level managers. And lastly, is
lack of vision.

It is stated that one of the reason why Nokia failed is because its technology is
inferior to Apple. The arrival of iPhone has a big impact to Nokia’s market share.
Steve Job, the owner of Apple, launched iPhone with an iOS running on it. Because
the product is new and touch-screen while Nokia is key-pad based at Symbian OS
(Operating System), many people desired to have iPhone rather than Nokia. But
Nokia being on top, they get satisfied and think that they will forever remain on top
knowing they have competitors. They refused to response with the changes while
other mobile phone brands continue to innovate and develop their product.

The second reason for the downfall of Nokia is because of the arrogance of top-
level managers. After receiving praises and being on top, Nokia was eating up by
complacency and they became confident that their business will never fail. When the
top managers learned that Apple is working on a smartphone that is running an iOS,
they realized that they need to come up with a competitive solution. But the top
managers knew that it would take years before they could develop an OS (Operating
System) that could compete with the Apple’s iOS. They put pressure on middle
managers while they are afraid to admit the inferiority of Symbian to iOS. After
Symbian OS became unsuccessful, Nokia build deals with Microsoft wherein they
will start using Window Phone as the new OS of Nokia but still, they failed to success
until Nokia was sold to Microsoft that make its existence in the mobile segment gone.
Just like researchers say, Nokia was left because they give focus to hardware rather
than software.

Lack of vision is also the main reason why Nokia failed. “Nokia saw the future,
but couldn’t build it. Everything that Apple and Google are today, Nokia wanted to
become.” (Vlad Savov, 2014). Nokia’s tagline is connecting people, yet they are the
one who failed to connect with people.

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III. Personal Observation

We cannot deny the fact that Nokia was known to be popular in the mobile phone
market. When I was at my young age, Nokia is the only mobile phone that is used by
everybody because they believed that it is the best mobile phone brand that you must
have. Partly, it is true because most of the people way back then have Nokia as their
mobile phone. Aside from its quality, Nokia is also well known with its battery life
and its “snake” game. But today, Nokia already have many competitors that launched
new features and OS of their products that they could offer to their target market and
that will also encourage them to buy it.

“We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”, the line uttered by Stephen
Elop, Nokia’s CEO, during his speech when Nokia got acquired by Microsoft. He was
right when he say that they didn’t do anything wrong, their only mistake is that they
do not engage with the changes that’s why their product was left behind.

After receiving praises and being on top, Nokia became contented with their
product. This was the mistake that Nokia made. They failed to innovate. They feel
like their product will not be at loss because many people are pleased with it, but
they’ve got it wrong. Like what we always say, change is constant. Customers are
always looking for something new and that is the problem with Nokia, they do not
create something new that they can offer. They do not continuously meet their
customers’ satisfaction, the reason why they shift to other mobile phone brand. And
when the competition grows and competitors already introduce new innovation, this is
only the time when Nokia starts to develop their own mobile phone. Nokia was too
slow to responds with the trends. They were left by other mobile phone industry that
makes their business failed.

No company will survive without innovation. In fact, they must keep on making
progress with their product so that they will not be caught off guard with the changes

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 and it will also help their business to be successful when it comes to their industry.

IV. Family and Educational Background

That boy comes from a well family, both his parents work in abroad and have
good collar job. He is living with his two siblings and grandmother who stand as his
mother and father since then. He left by his mother three months after giving birth to
him. From that on, all the needs of the child are being provided by his grandmother
but financed by his parents.

Annually, his parents go home to visit them and have a trip in any locations they
want to. In fact, among the class “Mitch” has the most travelled places inside and
outside the country. And at young age, they enrolled “Mitch” to prestigious school in
town. At first, they did not notice anything with regards to the behaviour, emotions,
physical attributes and even academic aspects of the students. Until one time during
the assessment period, all students were given examination and “Mitch” got a failing
score among the class. So, they called the attention of the teachers and the guardian of
the student. And after a thorough discussion, it was agreed to give another assessment
to “Mitch” and when he pass the exam he will then be a candidate for the next level.
But same fate happened, he failed again. And aside from that, several odd behaviours
and attributes were also noticed to the student. He started to suck his thumb, isolate
from the class, often argue to his classmates and demonstrate short tempered, and
having difficulty in organizing concepts. He even has a hard time reading alphabet
and counting numbers. Then, the school counsellor recommended to the family to
consult a specialist to know understand the case of “Mitch” and give possible
interventions if needed. And after consulting several specialists, it was found out that
“Mitch” has Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that contributes to his
learning disability.

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 After that event, the attention of the family is all concentrated to “Mitch”. All the
needed medications and treatment are given that lessen the occurrence of the
symptoms. He also continued to study and was able to finish his junior high school.
At present he is a grade 11 student in our school and I was assigned to be his class
adviser and language teacher. At first, I am afraid because it is my first time to handle
such case but his guardian and our school guidance counsellor thoroughly explained
to me the case. His family chose to enrol him in a regular class with the approval of
his consultant.

V. Strategies and Interventions

My interventions targeted three areas: homework, academic classroom

performance, and social skills for three weeks.

Academic Performance: My goal regarding Mitch’s academic performance was

to help him at least increase his scores in quizzes and other examinations. My
approach was to determine some of his abilities and then to provide continuing
affirmations of these abilities. Since I only had five weeks of intervention, we met 2
times per week for individual counselling together with Mrs. Robles during the
afternoon in the AV room. But first, I contacted his guardian to ask her permission
and that “Mitch” would be bringing her a permission slip making her aware of my
interventions for getting “Mitch” motivated.

We conducted individual counselling activities, such as the “Paper Brainstorm.”

In this activity “Mitch” unrolled some paper from a roll. He tore off individual
sections of paper from the roll. Each time a section was torn off, “Mitch” told me
about one of his abilities by completing the sentence, “I can…” I then helped
“Mitch” to see that he can use these abilities to help him in class to complete his work
and to be successful.

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 Aside from that, we also practiced and did “Think-Pair-Share” wherein I partner
myself to him and we think of topics that will help him to express his ideas. Through
this there will be an improvement to his communication skills that will later on affect
his academic performance. We also often do some drills in English, Mathematics and
Science which he has received a low grades in previous grading.

Homework: The second area for intervention was homework. I gathered

paperwork for a homework plan and contract. I believed if “Mitch” was aware that
someone was checking his daily progress with his work he would be more likely to
turn it in. Each Friday if all his homework was completed he would be allowed to
choose a prize from the school’s treasure box.

Each Wednesday “Mitch” and I discussed the homework plan for the week and
why he was completing each assignment. I read the directions with “Mitch” for each
assignment to make sure he understood what was expected of him. Next, we
discussed what time each day his homework was to be completed. We both decided
everyday he would come home, grab a snack to eat, and he would devote 30 minutes
to completing his homework. After completing his homework, his guardian would
sign the papers and the next day he would return the assignment to me and we would
discuss what he thought was hard or simple about the work.

Social Skills: Actually there is only a little thing I need to do with regards to
“Mitch” social skills. Though, his elementary and junior high school teachers said that
he needed help in dealing with his anger and getting along with other students. My
goal here is to let “Mitch” freely express his feelings and ideas to his classmates like
what normal students do. I want to see him talking and discussing concepts to his
classmates though initiative is not from his classmates. As I stated earlier, “Mitch”
will just group in the class if someone approach him. So what I did here is I ask some
leaders from the class to always group Mitch and never isolate him. I also tell them to
give task to him especially when reporting.

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VI. Recommendations

Last March 29, 2019, Mitch formally finished his grade 11 schooling. And many
teachers noticed that there are big improvements to the holistic aspects of Mitch.
Actually all of his grades increased and he is now cooperating and participating in
every group activity in the class though there are some cases that he still manifested
untoward behavior. So as part of my recommendations, there must be a development
of other modalities that will enhance the skills of the students particularly “Mitch”.
Teachers must give considerations and do careful and extensive analysis to the cases
like this. Integration of students’ forte in discussion is very important as it could be
the reasons why students will give passion in studying.

Thus, parents of students who have disorders must give full attention, love and
care to their children. Since they are the first implementer of everything to the
students. Government must also find ways to at least help and lessen the burden of the
family whose child is under medications due to learning disabilities. And for me as
Mitch’ adviser, I should give more time, patient and understanding to his case. I must
think of other ways that could further improve Mitch. Then, I should lessen giving
rewards to Mitch because it might lose his internal motivations to do things. So, I
must create better ways that will elucidate his passion in studying.

VII. Issues and Concerns

There are so many concerns and issues I want to address with regards to Mitch’
case but I failed to do so. First is time, because if I just give more time to his case
maybe his is much better to who and what he is today. Second is “takot na yakapin
sya” because at first I cannot deny the fact that I am really afraid to approach him
because of the idea that anything I will do might trigger or cause troubles so it took
time before I realized that he is really indeed special. Next is lack of knowledge and

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understanding with regards to that case. Because if I just have enough knowledge and
understanding to ADHD maybe I am able to innovate strategies that will help him.
Lastly is lack of trust, because I doubted Mitch, I doubted that he can do and he can
be an exemplary student.

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