The Success Of Nokia Corporation And Apple Inc.

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Technology development has presented challenges and opportunities to managers. Nokia Corporation and Apple Inc., both companies involved in the mobile phones manufacturing, have been showing examples of ineffective and effective management, respectively. Nokia, a historical leader on mobile phones manufacturing, has lost its market share mainly to Apple. Nokia’s fail and Apple’s success can be analysed considering Fayol’s principles of management – planning, leading, controlling and organising (Cunningham, 1990). These concepts still essential to a company’s survival in a dynamic market, which was lacking in Nokia’s managers while impressive in Apple. This essay will explore actions taken by Nokia that has made the company lose its strong market …show more content…
According to Hammond (1990), as leaders, top-level managers must enhance their human resources and establish a clear direction to achieve goals. In addition, strong leadership reflects on stakeholders’ confidence inside and outside the company, which is crucial for public companies such as Apple and Nokia. Considering this, Brahma (2015, 289) shows an e-mail sent by Nokia’s CEO as quoted “Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved? We are not collaborating internally”. After this email was released, in 2011, Nokia’s market share dropped around 50% compared to 2009. In contrast, Apple’s CEO has led its stakeholders to a state of integration and motivation. For example, Elkin and Voight (1998) state that in Steve Job’s era its employees could do what they believed it was impossible, and they did it with strong motivation. Furthermore, Apple had hard times in the past, when its leadership was weak. According to Mallin and Finkle (2011), Apple had three CEOs after Steve Jobs started the company with his partner. At that time, the company shares fell and Apple’s customers became disloyal. However, Elkin and Voight (1998) argue that when Jobs came back as the main leader of Apple, he sharpened the brand and saved the company from a disaster with strong marketing and leadership. After Jobs had recovered Apple’s trademark, it was such as people would kill to own an Apple device …show more content…
Control can be defined as the evaluation of a company’s operations, where a constant measure and feedback are applied to readjustment and improvement (Jones and George, 2003). Furthermore, Upadhaya, Munir and Blount (2014) argue that the organisational effectiveness is most likely to be achieved where there is an evaluation from both, financial and non-financial perspectives. Regarding financial resources, Nokia has clearly lost control. For example, Anwar (2014) states that Nokia spent $40 billion in the last ten years on R&D, while Apple has spent four times less over the same period. This shows that Nokia has not been controlling its company in an efficient way, and its managers have done no effective evaluation of their efforts and achievements. Non-financial parameters were apparently not being so clear to Nokia’s managers. Anwar (2014) asserts that Nokia’s users reported their mobile phones as boring and obsolete. Similarly, Brahma (2015) suggests that Nokia should have focused more on its client’s preferences. In comparison, Apple’s users have said that the iPhone was fun and sexy (Elkin and Voight, 1998). This also suggests that Nokia seemed to have forgotten all its past successful as an effective and innovative company. Anwar (2014) asserts that Nokia has recently had the lack in the environmental scanning. In addition, Ittner and Larcker (1998) suggest that a company’s

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