The Rise and Fall of Nokia

Juan  Alcacer; Tarun   Khanna; Christine  Snively

Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2014 (Revised April 2017)

The Rise and Fall of Nokia

by Juan Alcacer, Tarun Khanna and Christine Snively

Abstract

In 2013, Nokia sold its Device and Services business to Microsoft for €5.4 billion. For decades Nokia had led the telecommunications (telecom) industry in handsets and networking. By the late 2000s, however, Nokia's position as market leader in mobile devices was threatened by competition from new lower-cost Asian manufacturers. Apple's 2007 release of its iPhone established an entire new category—the smartphone—immediately popular with users. What were Nokia's missteps over the years? What should Nokia have done differently?

Keywords: Mobile phones; smartphone; telecommunications; wireless technology; emerging market; Technological Innovation; Competition; Emerging Markets; Mobile Technology; Wireless Technology; Telecommunications Industry; Asia;

Language: English

Format: Print

28 pages

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Citation:

Alcacer, Juan, Tarun Khanna, and Christine Snively. "The Rise and Fall of Nokia." Harvard Business School Case 714-428, January 2014. (Revised April 2017.)

In August 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods was struggling with high costs and faced growing competition from traditional supermarkets offering more organic products. Prior to the acquisition, Whole Foods began rolling out a new order-to-shelf (OTS) inventory management system that many observers believed had led to shortages. For years, store team leaders at Whole Foods were empowered to make inventory decisions and tailor their stores to meet local needs, but the OTS system, and an increasing number of strict rules for purchasing and displaying goods, upset many employees. Should Amazon push Whole Foods to improve performance by emphasizing efficiency and standardization? Or should it aim to maintain a sense of empowerment among employees?

Article | Harvard Business Review | July–August 2018

When Technology Gets Ahead of Society

Tarun Khanna

New technologies can be unsettling for industry incumbents, regulators, and consumers, because norms and institutions for dealing with them don’t yet exist. Interestingly, businesspeople in emerging economies face similar challenges: The rules are unclear and infrastructure is lacking. In this article, the author suggests that tech pioneers would do well to heed a lesson he’s gleaned from his research in the developing world: For long-term success, companies must invest in the surrounding ecosystem.
The author presents examples of entrepreneurs who have done just that in China, Bangladesh, Africa, and Chile, benefiting the public as well as their own enterprises. He then describes how an Indian health care organization is tackling institutional voids as it expands into medical tourism in the Cayman Islands. An in-depth look at the nascent drone industry follows, with profiles of companies that are helping create the conditions for the industry’s growth by amassing knowledge about best practices, influencing the development of regulations, exploring new uses for drones, developing a professional workforce, and so forth.
The argument is that when firms launching innovative products or services look beyond their self-interest and work to collectively build the institutional infrastructure, they—and society as a whole—are more likely to prosper.

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Society; Situation or Environment; Infrastructure; Entrepreneurship; Performance Effectiveness; Cooperation;

Citation:

Khanna, Tarun. "When Technology Gets Ahead of Society." Harvard Business Review 96, no. 4 (July–August 2018): 86–95. View Details

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