The company I have opted out of handset manufacturers is Nokia. It is because of their recent fall in the global market and currently they are struggling to gain market acceptance. Technological industry is considered to be the one that is characterized by highest innovation clock speed. It is this feature that prompts the players operating in the market to continuously undertake analytical processes and subsequently review their processes so as to highlight the areas of improvement and work upon them. It is this feature that positions certain companies as a leader in the industry. Technological advancement is constantly introducing changes in the market in the form of enhanced features and the competition in the market is becoming intense; resulting in the low cost offering of those attributes. The firms that fail to suffice this pressure usually suffer from declining market acceptance and growth as depicted by Nokia. The geographical area selected for the purpose of this project is Asia Pacific, which is an emerging market and one of the most strategic areas for Nokia; being accountable for 21% of the total net sales, thereby following none but Europe which is contributing around 36% to the net sales of around US$ 14,000 million.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Nokia is established as the largest cell phone vendor in the world. Although the customer base has recently started to dwindle, but the accumulation of market shares still is significant enough. It was the first to embrace innovation and design along with the branding thus being established as the pioneer in the industry with excessive credibility and reputation to back in stringent times. Global expansion and extensive research and development pursued by Nokia adds to its strengths. The design is unique through the adaptation of user-friendly software and programming which lends easiness in usage to those users who are not tech-savvy, in addition to general customer base. Effective advertisement and communications strategy prove to be a trigger for sales in times of recession for Nokia since it adapts marketing strategy to the region in which it is operating in and their values, so as to communicate with greater effectiveness.
Weaknesses
The operating system used by Nokia; that is Symbian, is not being able to meet customer expectations in times when technology is changing fast and rapid innovation is prevailing (Fried, 2011). This loophole has lent significant kick-start to Samsung which is leading the market in the segment of Smartphone with the use of Android as the operating system (OS). Symbian needs to be developed so that it can support as many applications as Android and run effectively with greater efficiency which will greatly help Nokia in claiming its shares back (Ali-Yrkko, 2010). Nokia should concentrate their R&D efforts onto the further development of Symbian to cancel out this weakness to the greater extent. Furthermore, they need to lend greater degree of innovation to their cell phone sets as the clamshell and ...