What Strategic Mistakes Did Nokia Make in the US Market Essay Example

success, decided not to adapt Its phones for the U. S. market. That was a mistake and they're still trying to recover from this." An executive at a North American network operator said, "The attitude at Nokia was basically: Here Is a phone. Do you want It? Nokia wouldn't play by the rules here and they have paid a price."

That arrogant attitude and the global economic slowdown have continued to hurt the company's sales and earnings. Meanwhile, Nokia set up liaison offices in Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, and Parsippany, New Jersey, cities where the top American operators have big business units. And it has recently revamped its U.S. operations to collaborate more closely with those major operators.

For example, AT&T has begun billing its customers who use Nokia services, keeping those customers from receiving a second bill from Nokia. Best buy began carrying a Nokia netbook, which is a model for its new collaborative strategy. Nokia also forged a deal with Qualcomm, the largest maker of mobile phone chips for CDMA devices in the United States. It also struck a deal with Microsoft to design Windows Office Mobile software applications for phones that use Nokia's Symbian operating system.

Despite these efforts, however, some industry executives remain unimpressed. One analyst said, "They claim they get it and understand the U. S. American unit, who has a seat on Nokia's global management board", said, "In the past, we had a one-size-fits-all mentality that worked well on a global basis but did not help us in this market. That has changed now."

The company recognized that its ormer strategy had not worked in North America and began trying to lay the groundwork

for long-term success. Louison says, "Everything you see us doing is to build the broad set of capabilities to take us broader and deeper into the U. S. market."