Excellence in Integrating Care into the Product Development Process: A Case
Study of Nokia
J. Majava1, V. Isoherranen2
1
Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM), University of Oulu, Finland
2
Oulu Southern Institute (OSI), University of Oulu, Finland
(jukka.majava@oulu.fi )
(ville.isoherranen@oulu.fi )
Abstract – Excellence in product development results
from integrating various stakeholders’ requirements into a
winning offering. Customer care has become increasingly
important, as digitalization enables new business models and
revenue streams for companies. The integration of care
requirements must be enabled in the product development
(PD) process beginning in the early concepting and
development phases in order to ensure an excellent care
experience. The traditional elements of care-spare parts,
service tools, and support-must be coupled with advanced
software update capabilities. Future cutting-edge products
demand new self-support and repair capabilities that are
enabled by the digitalization of care assets and low-cost
distribution platforms. This study examines a case
company’s attempt (Nokia)to integrate the care dimension
into its PD process-a topic that has not been widely
addressed thus far. The findings show that a company can
seamlessly integrate care requirements into a PD process
already in the product concepting phase.
Keywords – Customer care, design for care (DfC),
design for excellence (DfX), digitalization, new product
development (NPD)
I. INTRODUCTION
Digitalization affects companies’ success in the
marketplace. Customers have a variety of options to fulfill
their needs, and the simple transaction of buying a
product is widely challenged by the service offering,
which brings the capabilities of the product to the
customer without the need to buy the actual product itself-
instead, he or she simply consumes the service product.
Whereas customer care has not traditionally been
considered to be among the most important stakeholders
in product development [1], the importance of care (i.e.,
the activities related to post-launch maintenance, repair,
support, the warranty process, and upgrading the product
or service) is growing due to this transfer from one-off
product sales to service sales. Care aftermarket services
are not only the minimum compulsory activities driven by
legislation or the warranty cost optimization of sold
products-they have the potential to become significant
revenue streams for companies. For example, Apple’s
growing services segment gains revenues from Internet
services, Apple Care, Apple Pay, licensing and other
services.
Design for care (DfC) has not been extensively
studied, especially regarding the integration of care into
the product development (PD) process (the focus of this
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study). This paper presents a case study of the once-
dominant mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, which
successfully integrated care requirements and capabilities
into its PD process. The study focuses on the project-level
activities and practices. It is part of a larger research
initiative investigating the different aspects of DfC and
care capability integration into PD, business model and
ecosystem development, and the implications for
companies’ strategic choices.
This study aims to answer the following research
question (RQ1):How does the case company integrate
care dimensions into the PD process?
II. METHODOLOGY
This research used a single case study method.
According to [2], “a case study is an empirical inquiry
that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its
real-life context, when the boundaries between
phenomenon and context are not evident and in which
multiple sources of evidence are used.” The case study is
a research strategy that focuses on understanding the
dynamics that are present within single settings [3]. The
theoretical background was built on three inter-related
concepts: PD process, design for excellence (DfX), and
DfC. The empirical data includes observations and
documented findings in the case company. Section III
contains a literature review, a presentation of the
empirical findings, and the results. Section IV discusses
the findings, and Section V concludes.
III. LITERATUREREVIEW AND RESULTS
A. The Product Development Process
Various definitions exist for PD. For example,[4]
defines PD as the “transformation of market opportunity
into a product available for sale.” According to [5],
“product development is the set of activities beginning
with perception of a market opportunity and ending in the
production, sale, and delivery of a product.” On the other
hand, [6] defines PD as “the overall process of strategy,
organization, concept generation, product and marketing
plan creation and evaluation, and commercialization of a
new product.” Product, in turn, can be defined as
“anything referred to as an external marketplace for sale,
use, or consumption. This includes physical products as
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well as services, and combinations of services and
products” [7].This study adopts abroad and long-term
view: in addition to product creation and delivery,
aftermarket phase-related services are also considered.
The purpose of a systematic PD process is to transfer
technology to a commercial application, to join technical
characteristics and market needs, to integrate functional
efforts to create the product, to implement organization
strategy through the development of a new product, and to
give managerial control while not being excessively
intrusive [8]. Despite major differences between
industries, the commonly presented linear PD model
includes eight stages: idea generation, idea screening,
concept testing, business analysis, product development,
test marketing, commercialization, and monitoring and
evaluation [9]. A typical starting point for PD is a product
plan. The most common process models include the
waterfall model [10], the iterative development model
[11], the stage-gate model [7], concurrent engineering [4],
and the agile development model [12].
Whereas software companies are increasingly using
agile development models, companies whose offerings
include physical elements typically utilize stage-gate
processes. Stage-gate can be viewed as a conceptual and
operational map that guides PD projects from ideas to
launch and beyond. The general flow of a stage-gate
system includes the following stages: discovery, scoping,
building the business case, development, testing and
validation, and launch. Before each stage is a gate or a
go/kill decision point where the team gathers and reviews
all new information. The gates serve as quality control
checkpoints, as go/kill and prioritization decision points,
as well as points for agreeing upon the next steps. Gates
contain a set of required deliverables, criteria against
which the project is judged, and defined outputs, such as
go/kill decisions [7].
B. Design for Excellence and Design for Care
Sufficiently fulfilling stakeholders’ needs is
considered to be a key element for successful PD [13, 14].
DfX can be seen as a way to systematically address the
needs of different stakeholders[15].The first attempts to
address stakeholders’ needs via DfX included assembly
and manufacturing considerations (i.e., design for
assembly [DfA] and design for manufacturability [DfM])
[16, 17]. The use of DfX has since expanded; it is applied
in various areas, including design for testability (DfT),
design for environment (DfE), design for service (DfS),
design for quality (DfQ), and many others [18, 19, 20, 21,
22, 23].
With the introduction of different DfXs, the aim has
been to effectively consider various important aspects
during PD that cover the entire product lifecycle. The
DfX aspects relevant to customer care include reliability,
availability, maintainability, and the serviceability of
products [24].
DfX techniques range from high-level guidelines to
detailed software tools. DfX has been criticized for
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providing an anti-holistic approach, as each DfX element
focuses on only one aspect. The number of elements can
be vast, which makes it difficult to take every requirement
into account [25].Some attempts have been made to study
companies’ DfX practices and to create amore holistic
integration of the supply chain and PD [26, 27, 28].Yet,
research focusing on how customer care is integrated into
PD is scarce.
C. Integration of Care into Product Development at
Nokia
The case company in the current study is the former
Nokia mobile phones business. Nokia’s strategy in mobile
phones was oriented toward product-centricity [29].
Although Nokia did not succeed in executing its strategy
during major technological disruptions (i.e., touch
displays, operating systems, and the third-party
application revolution), the company isan industry
benchmark in supply chain management and integrating
customer care with PD. The aforementioned claim is
supported by the large number of product models and
variants created by the company as well as its annual
market volume of hundreds of millions of units [30].
Nokia has gone through several transformations
during its existence. In 2008, the company restructured its
mobile phones business related organization into three
main functional groups: Markets, Devices, and Software
& Services. The other groups included Nokia Siemens
Networks, NAVTEQ, Corporate Development Office,
Corporate Functions, and Group Executive Board [31].
Mobile phones business related customer care activities in
Nokia were organized under both business units and
regional marketing and sales organizations. Customer care
resources in business units were mainly responsible for
product creation-related activities, whereas regional
marketing and sales organizations took care of daily
transactions with business-to-business customers
(i.e.,operators, distributors, retailers) and consumers.
Product support for end-users was available through
Nokia’s customer care contact centers. Repair-related
activities were mainly handled by thousands of authorized
third-party service points around the world.
Fig. 1. Product development process phases in the case company.
Fig. 1shows a high-level view of the PD process
phases used at Nokia in years2008–2010, at which time
the company was the leading mobile phone manufacturer
 Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE IEEM
in terms of volume. Approximately 450 million Nokia
phones were sold every year, and the company’s warranty
population was estimated to be roughly one billion units.
Although phase-specific milestones are excluded in Fig.
1, the process can be considered to resemble both
concurrent engineering and stage-gate processes [4, 7].
As Fig. 1 illustrates, product creation at Nokia
includes three distinct phases. The first phase of product
creation is the concepting phase. The actual development
is carried out in the development phase, which is
succeeded by the maintenance phase (this takes place
after product sales and deliveries have begun).
The concepting phase begins when the company’s
product portfolio management gives a “concepting order”
for a new product. Concepting aims to address the
following questions: Why? What? How? The key people
participating in the concepting phase include the product
program manager (PPM),the product manager (PM), the
R&D manager, the software manager, the operations and
logistics manager, the sourcing manager, and the care
project manager (CPM). Different design alternatives are
studied and proposals on the following items are made: a
business plan (why, or what the product aims for), product
specifications (what, or what the product is like), and a
product program plan (how, or how the product will be
created). The concrete deliverables in the concepting
phase include sub-project product and program briefs. For
example, a care product brief describes the care and
support concept for the product that will be developed and
delivered to the market. Table 1 presents ten key issues
that the CPM must study and clarify in the concepting
phase in order to create the care product brief.
TABLE I
CARE ISSUES TO BE STUDIED
IN THE CONCEPTING PHASE
Issue Description
1 Product concept
2 Sales forecast
3 Target customers and their care and support requirements
4 The preceding products’ care concepts and lessons to learn
5 New technologies, risky components and parts
6 Estimated product and part prices
Does repair make sense economically;
7 Which parts should be replaced in care;
Should mere SW updates be provided instead of repair
8 What type of diagnostics and care tools are needed
9 Are customers allowed to update SW by themselves
10
How product and e-support should be handled;
Who answers technical and product support questions
In the concepting phase, it is crucial to recognize new
needs in order to avoid surprises and delays during the
project. In addition, in this phase, the CPM has a chance
to affect the product concept from a DfC point of view.
After the concepting phase is the development phase.
Typically, a product program planning day is organized at
the beginning of this phase. The participants include the
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product program management team (PPM, PM, the R&D
manager, the software manager, the operations and
logistics manager, the sourcing manager, the test
manager, and the CPM) and other sub-project
representatives such as the radio frequency (RF) and
mechanical chief engineers. This team often conducts the
product program planning by utilizing a planning board
and Post-it notes. Sub-projects schedule their most
important events and deliverables for the project, such as
software requirements, production tools, user guides,
specifications, layout designs, user testing, product
acceptances, and prototype builds in pre-production and
factory.
From the DfC perspective, the most important events
and deliverables include care software requirements, spare
part list drafts and final versions, care manual drafts and
final versions, care repair and product support training,
care tool prototypes and final versions, and spare part
orders. The team synchronizes these activities by utilizing
the planning board and Post-it notes. For example, care
tool prototypes are needed bya certain time period before
the product prototype build, care software requirements
by a specific date, etc. Product program milestones are
defined based on the most important events and
deliverables. The sales start target often drives the
schedule, and the activities are planned accordingly to
meet this required target. In the early development phase,
the CPM can and must influence the product hardware
and software requirements from the customer care point
of view.
The product maintenance phase starts after the
production ramp-up and product sales begin. In the
maintenance phase, the responsibility for the product is
handed over to a Product Engineering (PE) team. Typical
customer care-related activities in the maintenance phase
include field feedback analysis via collecting a planned
number of samples of the first failed products in the
market, studying failure reports through customer support,
and monitoring the field failure rate. The maintenance
phase involves less R&D resources, as these experts must
be transferred to new projects.
Unexpected product problems can appear in the
product maintenance phase, such as problems related to
challenging operating conditions (e.g., dust, moisture) in
developing countries, software issues, and quality
problems related to sensitive parts. These could include
displays and new type of mechanics, especially if new
technologies are involved. Customer care must identify
and indicate which problems the PE team must correct by,
for example, creating a new software version or changing
the design, parts, components, or production process. The
PE team must also monitor production yields and address
possible component changes related to suppliers. Before
the product ramp-down, end-of-life forecasts must be
created for final products, for the related parts and
components, as well as for spare parts. However, the
ramp-down does not equal the end of the product’s
lifecycle, as many customers use their products for several
years. The manufacturer is legally responsible for the
 Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE IEEM
product also after the warranty period has expired. At this
stage, care teams in sales areas remain responsible for
continuing care activities and product service support.
IV. DISCUSSION
This study focused on integrating care into the PD
process via a case study of a dominant mobile phone
manufacturer as part of a larger research initiative related
to DfC and care capabilities. Based on the large number
of product models and variants Nokia created and its huge
market volumes, it can be considered as an industry
benchmark. This study complements the existing
knowledge on PD, DfX, and DfC [e.g., 4, 15, 24] by
presenting an analysis of the case company, which
demonstrates a high level of operational excellence and
maturity in its product creation process. The company
takes a very holistic lifecycle view of PD and integrates
stakeholders’ requirements seamlessly into its end
products. Customer care is a credible stakeholder in the
case company’s PD process, and the integration already
begins in the product concepting phase.
Whereas daily customer care activities take place in
the maintenance phase, the concepting and early
development phases are vital from a DfC point of view if
the care integration is to succeed. If care-related
requirements are not considered in the aforementioned
phases, it is very difficult to fulfill these requirements
later on. Another good practice that the present study
identified was the systematic evaluation of care-specific
issues in the concepting phase (Table 1). The case
company’s process provides a chance to take into account
the key issues affecting the care concept, such as the
product concept, sales forecast, and customer
requirements related to care and support.
Overall, it is important to identify and analyze the
current best practices, keeping in mind that the future will
create new challenges. The ongoing digitalization
revolution will likely change delivery platforms of care
services and products. This revolution disrupts the
traditional and planned value chains, possibly skipping
players or making some of them obsolete. For example, in
many cases, customers are already able to update the
latest versions of software without needing to interact
with companies’ care organizations or third-party service
points. Another key trend is 3D printing, which
profoundly changes how spare parts are made available to
customers. It removes the need to hold any physical
inventory for spare parts; instead, only a digital library of
drawings or printer files is needed. This information is
delivered digitally to wherever the customer is located
without the need for an expensive physical delivery
channel. In the future, spare parts may even be printed at
home. It can also produce complex parts, which enables
having almost any part of the product as a spare part. This
further challenges the integration of care dimensions into
the PD process, as traditional manufacturing technologies
and delivery channels cannot provide this flexibility.
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Finally, it is clear that large corporations, which
develop, manufacture, and sell high-volume products,
need to take a systematic approach to digitalization. These
corporations must find an approach that enables a fluid
transition from their current processes that evolved before
the new digital era to the most cutting-edge processes. If
the transition is successful, companies can leverage many
new opportunities for creating revenue streams from care
aftermarket services.
V. CONCLUSION
This study addressed the following research question:
“How does the case company integrate care dimensions
into the PD process?”The focus was on the project-level
activities and practices in the PD process. It can be
concluded that the case company takes a holistic view
already in the concepting and development phases to
integrate care dimensions into its PD. This holistic view is
essential to ensuring excellence in PD and care operations
integration, resulting in world-class customer service and
experience.
However, it should be stressed that the research
presented in this paper includes the typical limitations of a
case study, which makes generalizing the results difficult.
Thus, further cases should be studied in order to compare
and validate the current findings. In further research, it
would be interesting to examine care capability creation
and its linkage to companies’ strategic choices as well as
business models and ecosystems in the era of
digitalization.
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