Introduction: Background of the Company
Nokia is one of the most internationally renowned leading mobile phone companies that originated from Finland, with its headquarters in Espoo. The company emerged in 1885 and has since then been dealing with providing telecommunications and information technology services such as developing mobile phones and their accessories, internet services, and telephony technologies.
Be sure to discuss the main products and/or services that the company sells
Nokia Corporation deals with an assortment of products and services related to telecommunication and IT. For products, the company ventures in mobile phones, mobile phone accessories, computer devices, tablets, and several other portable Information technology gadgets. Nokia also provides internet services, including mobile phone internet applications, routing services, digital mapping, gaming services, and multimedia services.
Describe the industry in which the company operates
Nokia Corporation is a mobile phone manufacturing company under the mobile phone industry, but is under the telecommunication and information technology industry as it deals mostly with communication products and services. The telecommunication, cell phone and the information technology industries are industries dealing with inventing modern communication devices and providing efficient communication services.
Nokia Corporation is a multinational company that is currently venturing in almost every state or nation across the continents. Within the UAE, Nokia has a series of argent companies that operate under the Nokia umbrella. Nokia Corporation has sub-companies in Dubai and within other major cities around the United Arab Emirates.
Mention something about the competition and how you believe the company competes (relating this to their operations)
Nokia UAE is facing stiff competition in the Middle East as well as across the world because companies like Samsung, Apple, and Huawei have come up with unique models of phones in terms of hardware, operating systems, and applications that meet diverse needs of customers. However, I believe that Nokia UAE is increasingly becoming competitive in various markets because it is expanding its operations to reach many customers.
Nokia UAE has made sure that it provides customers in the UAE with all models of Nokia phones and applications in Ovi Stores. Moreover, Nokia UAE has an extensive support system that allows customers to optimize the use of phones. The advent of smartphones has compelled mobile operators to offer high-speed networks and business solutions. Hence, the operations of Nokia UAE are very competitive in the markets.
Nokia Corporation performed very well during the last few years with a market share of approximately 18%, which currently seems to have downsized to about 3%. Although still earning a somewhat good market reputation, its market value is diminishing. Nokia is in fact currently facing financial disaster and has lost over 40% of its cell phone revenues.
Strategy of the Company
Nokia UAE Corporation has an articulated mission indicated as, to become the dominating communication products manufacturer and distributor of the world.
Nokia Corporation serves under a strategic plan that focuses on cost-effectiveness and differentiation strategies. Nokia UAE has a cost-effectiveness strategy by ensuring that it produces and distributes low-cost products that are quite affordable for the Emirati people. It also utilizes differentiation strategy by producing unique products and in varieties exceptional from its competitors.
Nokia Lumia model is a smartphone that competes with android and other models. Nokia’s first-ever Windows tablet is Nokia Asha, which is a unique model with crystal-clear design, high pixel camera, and very sensitive user interface.
Are they following their strategy or not? And why?
Differentiation is a strategy that is paramount for Nokia UAE and remains unchanged. For the cost-effectiveness strategy, the strategy fluctuates depending on the market trends. Since it is a determinant in the decision-making process, the strategy relies on the consumption and other factors.
Does the company measure the productivity of their workers?
Employees are important facets to Nokia UAE and their productivity is paramount to the management of the company. The company’s human resource department measures and analyses the performance of its employees and offers motivation through employee empowerment.
How do they measure productivity?
Nokia UAE measures employee productivity through analyzing the potency of a single employee per the work assignment given to them on their first day. The company assumes that productivity depends on job satisfaction.
Is productivity difficult to measure in this industry or company? Why?
Nokia UAE rarely faces challenges in measuring the productivity of its employees, as the company’s human resource management team is normally competent in assessing employee productivity and a strong top management with sufficient information regarding the company’s operational capabilities.
How is Nokia different from others in the industry?
Differentiation as a paramount business strategy makes Nokia an exceptional company, with its assortment of portable information technology gadgets being exemplary. For instance, while many cell phone companies produce smartphones with integrated android operating system, Nokia has devised its unique approaches. Ordinary phones and smartphones of Nokia have unique shapes, colors, and features.
The features of Nokia phones are user-friendly and customized to suite customer’s tastes and preferences. Moreover, Nokia phones have the largest internal memory when compared with other phones, and thus allows them to run many applications just like android phones.
Forecasting
Forecasting is a management strategy that is useful in analyzing organizational strategies and productivity. Regression, qualitative, and quantitative are the major business forecasting techniques. Regression-based forecasting model examines trends in the business costs and net income to examine their business market. Qualitative forecasting model is where a business uses actual opinions and ideas as forms of data to ascertain the situation within the market.
Quantitative forecasting model uses sales numbers and web interchange numbers and new accounts to examine market state. Quantitative approach uses statistical analysis in predicting trends in various markets. Nokia UAE uses the Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) demand as a forecasting technique.
Nokia UAE uses the Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) demand is a forecasting technique that calculates demand variability of the products and services in the market. Within the Nokia UAE, the Mean Absolute Deviation Percent (MADP) and the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) are forecasting techniques common in this company.
In enhancing forecasting accuracy, Nokia UAE uses certain time horizons that include short-range time forecasts where certain programs, operations, and activities follow short-term stipulated schedules to achieve its targets. This explains the reasons why their products do not serve for long in the market before other new ones emerge.
Given the rising competition in the modern-day business world, forecasting as a strategy should receive the needed attention to make Nokia UAE more successful. Regression as a business-forecasting model is becoming an effective modern approach, as it focuses on costs and net income of the company. For Nokia UAE, this approach will help the company balance costs, forecast of income and meet operational demands as anticipated.
Product and Service Design
Like its international program, Nokia UAE deals with an array of telecommunication and information technology products and services as well. In terms of products, the main intent of the company is to produce affordable and portable communication and technology devices that are anticipations for the vibrant youth consumer population.
Smart phones, tablets, portable computer devices, internet-enabled phones, simple communication phones, various touch screen phones, and many other advanced technology tools. The products have been so reliable for the consumers, something that keeps Nokia Corporation on the market. In terms of services, the company offers mobile gaming services, internet applications, instant messaging, and multimedia services.
Nokia Corporation, unlike several other mobile phone companies known to the world, has at least managed to produce high-quality products characterized by durability. With high-quality assurance and quality control measures designed by the company strictly followed, the products produced by Nokia UAE and its international allies are of exceptional quality with recorded evidence of long-term durability. The life shelf of many of the Nokia products exceeds that of its direct competitor, Samsung.
Is the company managing product design according to their selected strategy (low cost/ differentiation/ response)?
The concept of low pricing and differentiation as the main market triumph strategies are normally in line with the product designing strategies. Nokia UAE designs products, with consideration of the consumer preferences and the consumer ability as determined by the pre-existing market research evidence documented.
The company designs its products and offers services while considering the purchasing power of its consumers as per the market where the products intends to serve. The products designed differ, but sometimes clients have expressed their resentments over the little changes made to each advancing Nokia product, as they reflect a slight change from the previous ones.
Reverse engineering, is a business practice that involves the process of unveiling the technological ideologies pertaining to a device, system or even a business operation or program through structural analysis of its composition.
The Nokia Corporation, as aforementioned, has a weakness of relying on their previous technological designs to invent a new product. Reverse engineering will help Nokia figure out new products and make design decisions without using recurring ideas.
Capacity Planning
Nokia, as a multinational company, seems to have been sailing through the market due to its initial financial capacity, though sudden twist in its economic status may undermine this fact. Capacity planning means understanding the potential of accompany to initiate and manage a business program.
Nokia UAE has the best-talented workforce with perfect skills required for high productivity of the company. However, wrangles between managers, employees, shareholders, are ruining their capacity in strengthening the company.
The company seems to have the right capacity of both human and capital resources required to make the company more effective than it seems. Nonetheless, the current situation in the management is not appealing as the conflicts arising from the company are ruining its productivity. This means that the company requires reexamination of its management capacity to perform well.
Strengthening the management and ensuring constant employee empowerment and support as motivation is one of the key employee retention techniques that seems more effective in the modern-day business environment. Over-employment of the workforce is also harmful nowadays for companies.
The company has no excess capital capacity the current resources, especially human resources are functioning optimally while the room for growth is diminishing due to lack of excess resources for development. Currently, the company’s production is currently not exceeding the consumption demands.
Cost-effectiveness in the company includes analyzing company’s capacity before investing in any business product or demanding more workforces. The capacity management of Nokia UAE is in tandem with the customer demands regarding products unveiled to the market.
Nonetheless, the internal conflicts are affecting proper utilization of the human resources and this affects the cost-effectiveness aspect as the employee productivity remains underutilized.
Process Design
Process design involves determining, equipment requirements, program implementation, and workflow required to meet needs of the clients. Nokia UAE uses design for assembly line with sophisticated machinery because it reduces the assembly costs. The design for assembly line process involves the use of automated machinery in the generation of products in sequential manner.
The automated controls aid in the assembly of products continuously, and thus increasing the volume while reducing variable costs. Moreover, design for assembly line is flexible as the company can increase or decrease the volume of production while maintaining the cost of production at the same level. Thus, this process design has helped Nokia to increase production while reducing the costs of production.
Typically, the concept of cost-effectiveness in the company seems convoluted because, as the company provides cost-effective products, the process design seems sophisticated and expensive than anticipated.
The operation cost designed in the freight-designed manner is relatively higher than their market strategy demands. Sophisticated technologies employed to design products, offer services require exemplary care, and the company spends immensely to handle the machinery and maintain the processes.
Location
The physical location of Nokia Corporation from its backdrop is Finland. However, its location within the UAE countries lies within places with fast-growing business premises and Dubai is one of the centers where the company operates. Dubai is the fastest-growing Muslim city with millions of investors attracted to this capital. Dubai is a strategic location within the UAE and Nokia expects to excel in this place.
In locating the headquarters in Dubai, Nokia UAE had targeted the fast-growing city as part of its strategic location planning. Technological innovation and consumption of technological communication services and its devices are on rapid growth in Dubai. Located within the Al Thuraya Tower II, also known as Dubai’s Internet City, the center is a technological zone that pulls millions of potential consumers.
In your opinion, is this a good location? Why or why not?
Nothing can match the most effective decision made at the headquarters of the Nokia Company around Dubai, as it currently stands out as the most advanced Muslim city where millions of potential investors and consumer population converge. The city is a growing technological center with a vibrant youth population who anticipate for such modernized mobile technologies.
The strategy of cost-effectiveness and differentiation remains well supported by the Dubai City, as although it may deem expensive due to the city structure, a pool of consumers is enough to bring back the desired profits. Although several other companies have invested in Dubai, Nokia is still a unique technological company. The unique technological products are a potential force behind the market success.
Quality and Quality Control
The reason behind a constant supply of desirable Nokia product rests upon the fact that the company has been in the forefront in strengthening the quality management system. Although somewhat poor in innovation, the products designed in quality-oriented manner where durability is a great concern, the company products are exceptional.
The quality control system of Nokia UAE entails persistent quality examination undertaken by a team of quality management experts who perform quality checks. Early test, pretests, in routine cycles throughout the production processes help Nokia UAE.
The early checks, constant reexaminations, and pretests to ascertain the quality of the phones and other technological devices is part of the inspection process that examines the quality of each product in Nokia UAE.
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), Ishikawa diagram, and statistical process control (control chart) are the types of quality tools that Nokia UAE uses in its quality assurance and control procedures. FMEA is an effective control tool because it identifies faults, and thus aid quality assurance and control procedures. Ishikawa diagram is a control tool that depicts the relationships between a problem and its causes, and thus it is a cause-and-effect tool.
The Ishikawa diagram is significant because it identifies causes of problems in a process by grouping the causes of problems into machines, methods, materials, management, and human resource. Statistical process control (control chart) allows measurement of attributes over a period. The control chart is important because it monitors processes and ensures that they are performing optimally as expected.
Adding some external quality control overseers is important to help the company acknowledge the importance of producing goods in respect to reverse engineering as an important business practice involving technological companies. This enables the company to avoid reinventing technologies following their previous designs.
The company’s quality management system seems effective, especially when considered in its effectiveness in maintaining the quality of the Nokia phones and accessories. Lack of understanding of the principles of reverse engineering makes the expertise of the quality control seem questionable.
Conclusions
It is slowly becoming clear that companies venturing within the Arab nations are receiving a motivating welcome and Nokia being a technological investment, the possibility of Nokia UAE becoming strong and independent in the UAE is considerably high. Of greatest concern is the growing concept of Nokia International assuming the importance of the principles of reverse engineering, something expected to influence its future survival when consumers realize this weakness.
It may remain unknown whether the company is really serving under its two aforementioned strategies, differentiation, and cost-effective techniques. This is solely because whereas the company is producing affordable devices, the sophisticated operational process consumes many finances. Inasmuch as the company is producing trendy products, the differentiation aspect remains undermined by lack of proper adherence to the reverse engineering principles.
Introducing technological devices of different shapes, colors, and design is not enough to manipulate the lively technological consumers who are becoming more technologically suave in the modern-day. Consumer’s high exposure to a series of technological devices may finally lead to discovery and design lapses in the devices produced by Nokia. It is imperative to understand the principles of reverse engineering to enhance the quality of its products in terms of innovation.