To successfully overcome the emerging business challenges, the corporation executives must rely on an adequate analysis of the internal and external environment of the organization. Such evaluation could be especially beneficial for the Nokia corporation, allowing the executives to establish the potential outcomes of failing to provide 5G coverage for North America, a crucial challenge for the firm’s development. This paper presents a SWOT analysis for Nokia, describing the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats aspects of its environment, as well as explaining how these elements might be valuable for resolving the outlined issue.
The SWOT framework consists of four elements that define the organization’s internal and external environment. The first component, Strengths, is connected to the company’s internal environment and is defined as the firm’s most beneficial capabilities (Abraham, 2012). By questioning the enterprise’s competitive advantages, resources, and customers’ loyalty factors, it is possible to establish the most prominent Strengths. For Nokia, its Strength is its consistent technical innovation, as the brand has remained one of the leaders in technological advancement throughout the years (Lamberg et al., 2021). This characteristic could be vital in resolving the challenge of 5G coverage in North America, as high-quality advanced equipment is necessary for diminishing the coverage gap.
The next aspect of the SWOT analysis, Weaknesses, also refers to the firm’s internal environment. However, this element outlines the negative characteristics of the company, such as the issues that impede growth or problem resolution (Abraham, 2012). Typically, inquiring which areas of operations are unimproved or what competitive advantages the opponents possess allow establishing the Weaknesses. In Nokia’s strategy, a significant Weakness is the lack of agility, as the company is slowly adapting to the technological trends in the mobile phone sector (Lamberg et al., 2021). Considering that Nokia consistently fails to amend its methods based on the ongoing tendencies, this Weakness could significantly impact the corporation’s ability to introduce 5G coverage in North America, where trends change quickly.
In contrast to the previous elements, the Opportunities factor of SWOT represents the firm’s external environment. Opportunities are explained as a product or service that could improve the company’s outputs and are directed at a particular customer category (Abraham, 2012). Such questions as “What assists the business in developing?” or “What external factors promote the organization’s growth?” can help determine these aspects. For Nokia, a potential opportunity is an advancing demand for 5G equipment from the interested network carriers (Rost et al., 2016). As more people use the 5G network, more companies become interested in creating a contract with a 5G device distributor. Nokia could utilize this trend for its advantage by securing an agreement with an Internet provider.
Finally, the Threats element of the SWOT analysis refers to the external factors dangerous for the enterprise’s positive growth. Threats are defined as external forces that can harm the company but cannot be addressed internally (Abraham, 2012). Identifying the organization’s competitors and questioning which emerging trends could negatively affect the business can help assess the Threats. For Nokia, a developing Threat is the cost of production materials needed to create the devices for 5G coverage. With most of the needed resources becoming scarce, technological companies struggle to secure these materials (Rost et al., 2016). Considering that a high amount of resources will be needed to establish 5G coverage in North America, Nokia could be tremendously harmed by their rising costs.
To conclude, SWOT analysis for Nokia was presented in this paper, outlining the elements of consistent technical innovation, the lack of agility, advancing demand for 5G coverage, and cost of production materials. These aspects could considerably impact the outcome of the current challenge, namely establishing 5G coverage in North America. Including these considerations into the strategic planning process makes it possible to choose a solution that addresses the company’s agility complication and accounts for the innovation benefits. Furthermore, including the impact of resource expenses and 5G coverage demand could boost Nokia’s ability to overcome this challenge.
References
Abraham, S. C. (2012). Strategic management for organizations. Bridgepoint Education.
AP News. (2021). Nokia profit dips as it sees challenges in US market for 5G. Web.
Lamberg, J.-A., Lubinaitė, S., Ojala, J., & Tikkanen, H. (2021). The curse of agility: The Nokia Corporation and the loss of market dominance in mobile phones, 2003–2013. Business History, 63(4), 574–605. Web.
Rost, P., Banchs, A., Berberana, I., Breitbach, M., Doll, M., Droste, H., Mannweiler, C., Puente, M. A., Samdanis, K., & Sayadi, B. (2016). Mobile network architecture evolution toward 5G. IEEE Communications Magazine, 54(5), 84–91. Web.