
A few years back, in India, Nokia was the coolest phone to own. Right from the corporate high-flying honcho to the milkman on the streets everyone owned a Nokia phone. The popularity of the Nokia phones were so much that cell phones came to be called as Nokias. That was how photocopying came to be called as Xerox, the name of the company that pioneered the effort of selling photocopiers. But Nokia these days reminds me of the tired warrior, unable to stand the competition from younger and faster warriors. Today, Nokia is just a shadow of itself.
The once dominant giant is now struggling to keep pace with faster and cooler younger phones. Competitors like Samsung and Apple have started fighting for space and Nokia can do little but watch.
So what happened that lead to this tragic turn of events. First is that Nokia failed to innovate. While it had the market lead, it should have pushed itself further and strived harder to maintain the lead. This approach would have led Nokia to see the next big thing – touch phones. Samsung and Apple actually pioneered in this type of phones. And when the market changed to touch phones, Nokia was caught with its pants down. Samsung meanwhile raced ahead and established itself as the new boss. A classic case of failure to capitalize on good times, led Nokia to play second fiddle.