Nokia's fightback in Emerging Markets

Nokia has been subject to huge battering in the last one year. The Finnish company has had a much needed change in leadership with Stephen Elop taking on the role of president and CEO. Nokia has lost market share, suffered from declining profit margins and scrapped its smartphone operating system for future models, creating significant uncertainty for the firm’s future.

There have been five major problems for Nokia.

Transition from Symbian to Windows Phone 7 : This has brought about uncertainty in the minds of investors and has been seen as a sign of Symbian’s failure.
Android based devises have gained market. Samsung was the highest gainer.
Success of Low-cost emerging market firms like ZTE, Micromax, etc, have hurt Nokia.
iPhone apart from Samsung has individually hurt Nokia in the touch screen segment and Blackberry in the business phone segment. Moreover imagine what a cheaper iPhone in emerging markets would do to Nokia?
Price pressures in Europe have caused Nokia to cut margins in Europe.

The fightback in emerging markets shows a change of strategy. Nokia is planning to change the rule. Their new strategy has a clear focus on after sales service, a factor very important in repeat purchase. It has the potential to thwart all phone manufacturers due to Nokia's extensive coverage and service centers. This is lacking for Apple, RIM and low cost handset manufacturers. Moreover the shift to a franchisee model to increase the after sales service touch points is a good aggressive move to regain share.

Giving the finger to a scripted life!

It's crazy to take jobs just because they look good on your resume. That's like saving sex for your old age. ~ Warren Buffet. You have plans for your life, career etc. You've built an entire script but what is this based on? Scott at Ted talks about how almost 80% of the people around the world don't like the job they do. In his career, he found one day that most of the job he did was automated by his competitors. Building the resume was clearly not way forward. It was during that time he he heard the quote by warren buffet, " It's crazy to take jobs just because they look good on your resume. That's like saving sex for your old age ". This was when he left his job. While there are know universities, which talk about finding your passion, Scott talks about a lens that can help in finding the job we love.

Twitter and the world of hate - Delhi Gang Rape

Common wisdom says that venting out reduces frustration. Twitter, Facebook, and blogs help us achieve the same. While what normally starts as a "venting out" experience, I suspect is turning out to be an anguish enhancer. When I look at trending topics on twitter all what I see is a world of "Hate". Small pieces of hate messages turn out to be a big collective bunch of hate. Take the case of Delhi gang rape and some ill-minded comments of politicians and spiritual gurus. What started as scattered bickering remarks against a comment made by "Asaram" has now become a full fledged ball of rage. This rage was "non-directional", had no agenda and was oriented towards sarcasm and wit. While Delhi gang rape highlights poor governance, societal problems and problems of law and order, venting out on a forum that accumulates the frustration by many such people only adds to the low well-being. It is time we use some discretion and post messages that...

Twitter vs. News - Effectiveness in building relations

Social Media has been termed as an effective way to build relationships. Brands are trying to harness this capability by building social presence on this new media. Celebrities today account for the maximum amount of followers on the web with twitter being a fine example for this. But is this new media effective in creating relationships with this vast list of followers, which celebrities often tend to have? In an interesting research by Lee and Jang , they explore the effectiveness of celebrities in building social presence on new media. They compare twitter and a news website to check the relative effectiveness of enhancing social presence. While the traditional PR machinery used by celebrities might give them news coverage, they contend that their tweets can reduce the barrier of relational development as compared to a news website. Their findings are counter-intuitive and very interesting.

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