Emerging Nokia?

Abstract

By late 2009, Nokia was grappling with the decision of whether to recover its leading position in the high-profit developed markets, where they were losing market share to the likes of Apple and Samsung, or defend its market leadership in the low-margin, high-volume emerging markets. This case poses the following questions: Should Nokia stay the course, operating in both the developed and emerging markets, or should they forego one for the other? And what would this imply for the types of handsets and services they would need to offer?

Learning Objective: To enable students to understand how country-specific industry structure impacts the ability of firms to develop and sustain their competitive advantage; To crystallize the emergence of new centers of innovation in emerging markets and the challenges and opportunities that they pose to global firms; To foster discussion on how manufacturing firms can enter into more lucrative, service-based segments of the market.