The Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this: “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”.
During the press conference announcing Nokia’s acquisition by Microsoft, the CEO supposedly closed with, “We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost.” The oft-shared tale says his whole team—him included—broke down in tears.
Heart-tugging? Sure. True? Not a bit. The press conference shows no such breakdown or confession of defeat. And the photo that keeps doing the rounds isn’t Nokia’s CEO at all—it’s Steve Ballmer, and not from 2013.
Whilst it never happened, maybe it should have?
I worked at Nokia from 2005 until the end of 2012. I loved the brand as a consumer, and it was a dream to work for a company you love. Here’s my view— from the inside—on why Nokia no longer sits among the Top-10 consumer brands it once dominated.
The key success factors behind the Nokia miracle from 1997 to 2011 were simple and powerful: Products, Brand, and Demand–Supply—as set out in late-90s NMP strategy. Equally important were a shared mission (Connecting People), a bold vision (Mobile Information Society), and a distinctive, values-driven culture.
The reasons for Nokia’s fall are many. In my view: a rise of arrogance (despite efforts to avoid it), dilution of values (from Customer Satisfaction, Respect, Achievement, Continuous Learning), loss of consumer focus (leading to a bewildering portfolio), neglect of the American market, and “hero” egos that smothered real innovation.
In short, Nokia lost the chance not only to keep winning—but to survive. Like most air-crash investigations, it’s rarely one cause; it’s a chain of compounding issues that leads to catastrophe.
Headlines that deserve their own chapters
- Neglect of US carriers and their outsized influence on purchasing decisions
- Writing off the US as a follower due to CDMA while the rest of the world was GSM
- Google’s Android acquisition followed by January 2007 (the iPhone launch)
- Failing to anticipate the shift to apps and user experience trumping voice quality
- “Internal kings” — innovation existed, but wasn’t allowed to ship
- Slapping a Nokia logo on everything (Intellisync, Navteq, MixRadio, etc.)
- Finnish culture nuances — no need to dominate, giving rivals “a place under the sun”
- OVI — a cash-sucking black hole
- “My turn to lead” — OPK
- Death knell: resistance to displace Symbian and its eventual EOL
In the coming weeks, I’ll flesh out several of these points.
Follow-up posts
- : Understanding Nokia's Struggles in the US Mobile Market
- : Nokia's failure to anticipate the impact of new competitors
- : Apps. You need developer support, which Nokia didn't have
- : When Acquiring Turns into Assimilating
- : Why Nokia’s Pivot to Services Was the Right Call—and Why It Failed
[by: Grant Marais]
