True, Nokia is in the process of reincarnating itself. Currently, the company enjoys the largest market share in mobile industry with its Symbian platform and devices, but this is not enough. The company has yet to adapt to the changing trends in the phone industry.  The New York Times presents a very interesting analysis on the current status of Nokia, and the changes they need to make.

The article runs on the theme that Nokia has the capability to innovate, but they just don’t have the guts to take the risk of launching and marketing that innovation. This is backed by claims from former employees that the company had major innovations (like touch screen phones and 3d user interface) ready with working demos, way before the rest of the industry thought of the idea.

But many such industry innovations were shelfed. The article lists a number of possible reasons including bureaucratic management style, over-confidence resulting from market leadership and Risk-averse corporate culture. This excerpt from the article shall give you some idea :

As Nokia’s new chief executive, Stephen Elop, takes over this month, he faces a formidable task: to regain the company’s lost ground in the smartphone segment of the global phone market, especially in the United States, while maintaining its worldwide dominance as the largest maker of mobile phones. His biggest obstacle, according to Mr. Hakkarainen, as well as two other former employees and industry analysts, may well be Nokia’s stifling bureaucratic culture. In interviews, Mr. Hakkarainen and the other former employees depicted an organization so swollen by its early success that it grew complacent, slow and removed from consumer desires. As a result, they said, Nokia lost the lead in several crucial areas by failing to fast-track its designs for touch screens, software applications and 3-D interfaces.

The article also quotes

“Nokia in a sense is a victim of its own success,” said Jyrki Ali-Yrkko, an economist at the private Research Institute of the Finnish Economy. “It stayed with its playbook too long and didn’t change with the times. Now it’s time to make changes.”

Nokia is really trying hard, with drastic steps  such as a new CEO , executive shuffles , product launches and what not. Some efforts have been hampered because of delays. Analysts say it is a change in corporate culture that will change the company’s destiny. We say if the new Nokia attitude is combined with market focus in the right segments, it could do wonders for the company. The most important market segment to focus on is, of course, smartphones. This implies updates in hardware as well as the Symbian Platform and it’s compatible applictaions. We see Nokia is already on it with a Mobile Application Development Competition.

The  mobile phone manufacturing industry in general, and smart phone manufacturing industry in particular, are characterized by cutthroat competition. The current industry leaders (iPhone, Android and BlackBerry) are surely not willing to move even a little bit to make room for others. So, Nokia must come up with something a lot more exciting to capture market attention.  After all, another major competitor would only mean better products for better prices; a win-win for the consumers, especially in the business sector.