Nokia was once the leading mobile phone manufacturer but suddenly lost its shine due to mistakes its management team has made, according to former CEO and board member Jorma Ollila.
Ollila published a journal on Thursday titled An Impossible Success. It is quite long as it has 450 pages on it but it gives readers a full understanding on how Nokia Corp. fell down from the top of the ladder. He explained how the management team made business mistakes including ignoring the changing demands of its customers and failing to keep up with Asian competitors like Samsung.
According to the Associated Press, Nokia was already aware that the company is already falling behind the competition but was unable to think of ways to save the business amidst challenges especially when Apple Inc. entered the scene with its iPhone.
ZDnet reports that Nokia ignored the customers’ demands of it creating a touchscreen smartphone because it listened to U.S providers telling the company that customers won’t buy a smartphone above $300. Nokia should have been the first to launch a luxury touchscreen smartphone if it didn’t listen to the providers because Apple then launched the iPhone at $600 and became a major hit.
Ollila now works for Royal Dutch Shell as non-executive chairman but was with Nokia from 1999 to 2012. In 2010, he helped Nokia pick a new CEO and appointed the first non-Finnish CEO Stephen Elop. He also revealed in the Wall Street Journal that Elop wasn’t his first choice but he didn’t tell who the first choice was due to personal reasons. However, he clued in that the guy was “No. 2 at a well-known Technology company.”
Nokia was recently acquired by Microsoft for $7.2 billion which he described as a “dramatic and brave” decision for the board.
