nokia issues case study

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The Real Cause of Nokia’s Crisis

• Michael Schrage

Nokia’s technology isn’t a root cause of its current crisis. Don’t blame its engineers and designers either. The company still knows how to innovate. There’s a simpler and more strategic explanation for why this once-perennial market leader became second-rate. Nokia ignored America. The company simply refused to compete energetically, ingeniously and respectfully in the U.S. […]

Nokia’s technology isn’t a root cause of its current crisis. Don’t blame its engineers and designers either. The company still knows how to innovate . There’s a simpler and more strategic explanation for why this once-perennial market leader became second-rate.

• MS Michael Schrage , a research fellow at MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business, is the author of the books Serious Play (HBR Press), Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become? (HBR Press) and The Innovator’s Hypothesis (MIT Press).

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Nokia: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of a Technology Giant

The case examines the downward spiral of Nokia, the mobile technology giant that once conquered the world, seen from the perspective of ‘insiders’ – based on interviews with Nokia executives at top and middle management level. They describe the emotional undercurrents of the innovation process that caused temporal myopia – an excessive focus on short-term innovation at the expense of longer-term more beneficial activities. Nokia’s once-stellar performance was undermined by misaligned collective fear: top managers were afraid of competition from rival products, while middle managers were afraid of their bosses and even their peers. It was their reluctance to share negative information with top managers – who thus remained overly optimistic about the organisation’s capabilities – that generated inaccurate feedback and poorly adapted organizational responses that led to the company’s downfall. The case covers the period from the early 2000s to 2010, with a focus on 2007 (the introduction of the iPhone) to 2010, when the CEO left. Read a related Knowledge article "Who Killed Nokia? Nokia Did" by Quy Huy.

After reading and analysing the case, students will understand (i) how emotional dynamics influence hard technological and strategic decisions in organizations as they translate into challenges for innovation, (ii) how emotional dynamics can undermine innovation and performance.

• Top and middle management
• Mobile phone
• Radical change
• Strategic agility
• Temporal myopia

Quy Huy

Timo o. vuori.

Lisa Simone Duke

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The Rise and Fall of Nokia

• Format: Print
• | Language: English
• | Pages: 26

About The Authors

Juan Alcacer

Tarun Khanna

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• Faculty Research
• November 2020

The Rise and Fall of Nokia (Abridged)

• The Rise and Fall of Nokia  By: Juan Alcácer
• The Rise and Fall of Nokia  By: Juan Alcacer, Tarun Khanna and Christine Snively
• The Rise and Fall of Nokia (Abridged)  By: Juan Alcácer and Tarun Khanna

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The Rise and Fall of Nokia

By: Lisa Duke, Julian Birkinshaw

The case describes Nokia's spectacular rise and fall, shedding light on the combination of external factors and internal decisions that resulted in the company's handset business being sold to…

• Length: 15 page(s)
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2011
• Discipline: Strategy
• Product #: LBS152-PDF-ENG

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The case describes Nokia's spectacular rise and fall, shedding light on the combination of external factors and internal decisions that resulted in the company's handset business being sold to Microsoft in 2010. During the successful period of growth (roughly 1990 through to 2006), Nokia's focus on design and functionality gained it a worldwide reputation. It was acknowledged as the first smartphone manufacturer. Through the early-mid 2000s it was the undisputed leader in the global mobile phone business. The case traces the first signs of trouble and the company's subsequent decline over the period 2005 to 2010. Pressure in the early 2000s from low-end competitors led to early signs of problems. Then of course the game changed in 2007 with Apple's iPhone and a year later with phones powered by Google's Android operating system from HTC, Samsung and others. Nokia was initially dismissive of these new offerings but its proprietary OS, Symbian, was ageing badly and its App store (Ovi) was no match for Apple's. In September 2010 it was announced that American Stephen Elop, formerly of Microsoft, would become CEO. Not long afterwards a partnership with Microsoft was signed which subsequently led to Nokia's handset business being sold to Microsoft.

Learning Objectives

Understand why good companies go bad: in other words, to see how the assets that enable companies to succeed can also be liabilities when the market turns against them.

Provide insight into the nature of disruption in an established industry, and why incumbent firms struggle to adapt.

Examine the different paths companies should take to respond to disruptive forces.

To understand the leadership challenge for executives when their performance starts to decline.

To understand the dynamics of change in a fast-changing industry.

To identify strategies companies can use to adapt quickly to disruptive changes

Sep 1, 2011

Discipline:

Industries:

London Business School

LBS152-PDF-ENG

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The Rise and Fall of Nokia

By julian birkinshaw , lisa duke.

The case describes Nokia’s spectacular rise and fall, shedding light on the combination of external factors and internal decisions that resulted in the company’s handset business being sold to Microsoft in 2010.During the successful period of growth (roughly 1990 through to 2006), Nokia’s focus on design and functionality gained it a worldwide reputation. It was acknowledged as the first smartphone manufacturer. Through the early-mid 2000s it was the undisputed leader in the global mobile phone business. The case traces the first signs of trouble and the company’s subsequent decline over the period 2005 to 2010. Pressure in the early 2000s from low-end competitors led to early signs of problems. Then of course the game changed in 2007 with Apple’s iPhone and a year later with phones powered by Google’s Android operating system from HTC, Samsung and others. Nokia was initially dismissive of these new offerings but its proprietary OS, Symbian, was ageing badly and its App store (Ovi) was no match for Apple’s. In September 2010 it was announced that American Stephen Elop, formerly of Microsoft, would become CEO. Not long afterwards a partnership with Microsoft was signed which subsequently led to Nokia’s handset business being sold to Microsoft.

Learning objectives

• Understand why good companies go bad; in other words, see how the assets that enable companies to succeed can also be liabilities when the market turns against them.
• Provide insight into the nature of disruption in an established industry and why incumbent firms struggle to adapt.
• Examine the different paths companies should take to respond to disruptive forces.
• Understand the leadership challenge for executives when their performance starts to decline2. To understand the dynamics of change in a fast-changing industry.
• Identify strategies companies can use to adapt quickly to disruptive changes.

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• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Management Science and Operations
• Organisational Behaviour
• Organizational Behaviour and Strategy’
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What Could Have Saved Nokia, and What Can Other Companies Learn?

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Leaders who are able to identify and manage patterns of emotions in a collective are better able to make their ambitious strategies a reality.  Our argument centres around the idea that the emotions felt by a large number of people within an organisation can determine the success of strategy implementation even when these feelings go unexpressed.

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, former CEO of Nokia, when he was keynote speaker at an INSEAD conference investigating why Nokia lost the smartphone battle.

When we asked him to describe what it was like to face the competitive market of the mobile telecommunications industry during his tenure from 2006-2010, he responded that nowhere in business history has a competitive environment changed so much as it did with the converging of several industries – to the point that no-one knows what to call the industry anymore.  Mobile telephony converged with the mobile computer, the internet industry, the media industry and the applications industry - to mention a few… and today they’re all rolled into one. 

In such a fast-paced changing environment, it was unsurprising that Nokia’s top executives drew on the best practices of strategy implementation and Nokia’s famed strategic agility was certainly impressive in terms of acquisitions and mobile device development, but with the benefit of hindsight he would now acknowledge that the emotional climate within the organisation was overlooked during this turbulent period.

Pluralistic Silence Within

Kallasvuo, who had been with Nokia since 1980 in various functions such as CFO and Executive Vice President and General Manager of Mobile Phones, replaced Jorma Ollila as CEO in 2006.  Although a more integrative company was to be created to develop integrated software, hardware, and applications for the advanced smart phone, the keen entrepreneurial spirit for which Nokia had long been known, strongly prevailed and the key business units continued to compete for resources to develop products that would address various market needs.  Kallasvuo now sees that the company did not pay sufficient attention to the emotional undercurrents caused by internal competition for resources to develop a vast array of phone models for various market segments worldwide. Optimising the interests of one department, when repeated across many different departments, inadvertently hurt the overall welfare of the company. The problem of Nokia, after all, seems frustratingly similar to those of many large companies such as Microsoft or Sony who could not develop high quality innovative products fast enough to match their rising competitors. As the companies grew larger and richer, each department became its own kingdom, each executive a little emperor, and people were more concerned about their status and internal promotion than cooperating actively with other departments to produce innovative products rapidly. This phenomenon is also known as silo politics, and spread naturally and quickly like bad weeds in the garden. In other words, the whole became less than the sum of the parts.

Kallasvuo’s opinion corroborates with the qualitative research that we have conducted where we spoke with over 50 key Nokia managers [including Kallasvuo] multiple times to get their inside stories on what it was like working for the company during his management.  Essentially, the overriding emotion felt by top managers and middle managers within the organisation was one of fear.  And yet, it wasn’t necessarily a fear of being fired which pervaded; it was more about fear of losing social status in the organisation. Together, these fears shaped a collective emotional climate which influenced what information was shared [or rather not shared] in meetings. Middle managers were happy to allow senior managers to believe that deadlines, which were unrealistic, would be met for developing the Symbian software platform – and they did this because of a fear of losing social status. It was simply a case of them not wanting to upset others for fear of social retaliation and not wanting to show they had limitations or weaknesses both on a personal level and also at a company level with the product they were all investing their energies in.

As a result, a kind of pluralistic silence endured where no-one would speak up about the limitations of the Symbian platform and the slow progress of development of other more advanced software platforms. As a result of optimistic reporting, Nokia top managers kept believing the company was progressing well in matching Apple’s iPhone while it was not.  

Reporting What You Think Your Boss Wants To Hear

Of course, Nokia senior management had their own fears which came from what other companies like Apple and Google were planning to do—disrupt the industries – and they most certainly felt the pressure from shareholders to grow their quarterly earnings and sales revenues.  Even though the top managers sometimes acknowledged the threats publicly, fear of losing internal momentum and external sales in the short term prompted them to emphasise the quality of Nokia’s products and internal developments and, thus, downplay somewhat, at least in relative terms, the competitive threats to larger internal and external audiences. As a consequence, middle managers’ fears toward the competitors and concern over Nokia’s future were reduced. However, to ensure that Nokia would both match the short-term financial goals and succeed in the long-term against the rising competitors, top managers tended to put heavy pressure on subordinates to deliver more and faster, not accepting “no” for an answer, thereby increasing their subordinates’ fears of reporting honest feedback. The top managers also subconsciously alleviated their own fears of losing to rising competitors by accepting optimistic reports by middle managers and not questioning the validity of the good news. 

As a result, managers of various departments focused more on internal competition for resources and higher social status and were less fearful of competitors. CEO Kallasvuo noted that complacency had crept into the organisation and not enough importance was attached to what external competitors were doing; somehow the sense of urgency to innovate had waned and managers of the successful company were more intent on defending and preserving existing successes than attacking competitors by developing radically new products and incurring the risk of failure. He admits that the culture of “Not Invented Here” had become entrenched and no-one can assume a leading market position if a company is risk-averse.

He spoke of being present at a panel in New York in 2007 when Google announced the launch of their Android operating system and he realised immediately the significance of Google’s strategy that made what used to be called “smartphone” a mere “window to the cloud.” He realised that Nokia’s Symbian software platform would be outmatched if he did not take fast and urgent actions.  But by increasing pressures to work faster and harder among various departments, he inadvertently created an unhealthy emotional climate of fear that led to optimistic reporting by managers of various departments, ultimately causing the fast decline of Nokia high end smartphones that relied on an increasingly constrained and underdeveloped platform.

Strategy is 5 percent thinking, 95 percent execution. Strategy execution is 5 percent technical, 95 percent people-related.

With the benefit of hindsight, what could Nokia have done differently? We believe that more careful management of emotional processes would have allowed top managers to get more accurate information of Nokia’s software capabilities and development speed. Elements of better management of emotional processes might have included top managers sharing honestly their fear of losing against the new competitors to a limited set of key middle managers, and engaging these middle managers to work with top managers to counter the rising threats might have created healthy external fear and reduced maladaptive internal fears, which made telling unpleasant things to one’s superior difficult. Another way of amplifying healthy external fear might have been to require middle managers to use the new competitors’ products extensively, like Samsung did, to ensure that the middle managers developed a sufficiently deep understanding of their strengths over Nokia’s products along specific dimensions, such as usability. Top managers could also have been more mindful of their own fears and how the fears influenced both the way they set demands for R&D and interpreted the embellished reports that followed.

We would argue that adopting a culture where “telling bad news is a good thing” would have overcome the collective fear that so seriously affected Nokia’s perception of their ability to develop new, leading products fast.  Perhaps nowhere in the history of recent powerful business stories, has the lesson of the Emperor’s new clothes been more applicable.  Just telling the truth could have saved Nokia’s fortunes. Nokia’s unfortunate decline again validates our affirmation that companies grew to greatness because they did something better than others. But they declined because they forgot to do common sense things, such as managing collective emotions and building organisational emotional capital during disruptive times (see Huy’s forthcoming book in Harvard Business Press ). Managing a large business can be humbling because increasing complexity crowds out simplicity in action; to keep things from deteriorating, one needs to maintain a culture of honesty, humility, and cooperation inside the organisation.

The lesson of Nokia applies to many successful and less successful organisations. The most important job for CEOs of successful firms is to inspire and mobilise various groups to honestly and genuinely cooperate with one another to do valuable and innovative things for their customers. Large and successful organisations tend to have many new ideas and resources, and can even afford to get cutting edge consulting advice and market intelligence. Oftentimes, the strategic goal is clear, but how to make it happen is much more complex. It is often said that strategy is 5 percent thinking, 95 percent execution. We extend this by suggesting that strategy execution is 5 percent technical, and 95 percent people-related. And managing collective emotions is a critical success factor in strategy execution.

Prof. Huy and Prof. Vuori  welcome your comments via email.

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About the author(s)

is the Solvay Chaired Professor of Technological Innovation and a Professor of Strategic Management at INSEAD. He is also a director of the   Strategy Execution Programme , part of INSEAD’s suite of Executive Education programmes.

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Anonymous User

30/08/2016, 10.05 am

I was intrigued by the avoidance by Mr. K to talk about the role of Finnish culture, and especially the corporate culture within Nokia. There is a set of cases in the Harvard Business School collection that relates what happened to NORTON Abrasives over some 20 years. They kept promoting the same people, the same path, without ever asking themselves if those were the kind of people needed for the "next" era. In my estimation, only GE's Board and senior executives had the nerve to choose individuals who were radically different one from the other. Jack Welch was vastly different from his predecessor, and Jeffrey Imelt likewise. For a signal lesson in what NOT to do look at the company I worked for: AT&T. By promoting people only from within, by maintaining a culture of "we're different: we have to have a monopoly because of end-to-end service", they failed to understand the shift from 99.99% technology to a demonopolization, from the winners being lawyers (e.g. MCI) and not the very conservative engineers and finance pros. It was handwriting on the wall that every other regulated industry was being forced into competition: surface and air transport, natural gas and financial services, etc.When Bill Ellinghaus,, president of NY Telkephone had the temerity to say that and to advocate allowing terminal equipment to be sold, not leased by AT&T, JohndeButts and the senior team rejected his ideas in 1973, some 5 years after the FCC made it plain they wanted competition in the industry. Michael Porter was already writing about Compertitive Strategy in the '70's. In 1974, AT&T was sued by the U.S.Justice Department for monopoly behavior. They fought a losing battle for 8 years, before facing "execution" by a judge, or "voluntary" splitting up into separate companies. No one ever asked whether the policy of promoting only "insiders" (e.g. people recruited from university graduates) kept a culture going where dissent, vigorous discussion, new ideas (e.g. cellular phones, despite the fact that the technology was a Bell Labs invention) and leadership as a strict insiders club was the right policy. I came in from the U.S. Government and small business at age 31, and was told ten years later as the developer of corporate planning that "We're glad to have a guy like you in the company, but thank God, there's only one of you." After becoming one of three Directors of Strategic Planning, I took early retirement when it became obvious that the company was going down the tubes. Was Nokia unaware of what Steve Jobs was doing with the iPad as the "mooshing" of totally separate industries? Of the iPhone likewise ? Perhaps we should teach the Book of Daniel instead of abstruse Finance in Business Schools!

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29/08/2016, 06.04 pm

they knew everything, they had everything, and yet they let it all slip away...

15/08/2016, 12.51 pm

In order to succeed a company should have genuinely cooperate with one another to do valuable and innovative things for their customers.

17/03/2016, 07.44 am

Well, Nokia has sunk. It is hard to see or prove but Nokia failed because of their arrogance, executives underestimated Apple and Google. Nokia was leader in the market place for many years and they took this for granted, they thought they were invincible. If you don't make a change someone else will.

27/06/2015, 05.45 pm

Truly a wonderful article ,which should be taken seriously by all corporates,will give an insight view and prevent cases like Nokia in future

Bli medlem i facket

17/01/2015, 03.09 pm

Great article. It's always nice when you can not only be informed, but also entertained!

19/11/2014, 05.18 pm

An excellent article. I ignore management talks. I know that is a bad thing, but this article made me to read 3 times in a stretch. Some things you can shout, talk but some things we don't know to express. This article exactly nails that. BTW, I was an ex-Nokia group employee too... Life moves on. Hopefully I remember this lesson in the coming days.

03/10/2014, 01.54 am

The thing of vital importance here is the fact that emotions can't be put on a piece of paper, or on a chart or show impact of the bottom line! It is imperative for the organization as a whole to be like a permeable-membrane, that is let emotions and feelings flow freely from the outside world to the employees and vice versa. I think Nokia shut itself in, it should have embraced the new players, tried to strike up strategic alliances, being permeable letting information flow, and along with it emotions !

26/08/2014, 01.47 pm

the real truth is that Nokia was lucky : first one in a new market has all the power to execute and grow....no competition there. When competition came they struggle to keep their supremacy (with Motorola and Blackberry). Finally she the time came for a game changer they were simply not able to deal with it. OPK and Ollila before him were just lucky at the beginning and when the game became harder they show their true colour : poor management, arrogance and bureaucracy....this is the real lesson to learn.

24/07/2014, 06.08 pm

I worked for Nokia in Senior Corporate Strategy roles. While I respect former CEO Olli-Pekka for many good things he did while at Nokia, I think his explanation for Nokia's demise is simplistic if not evasive. Issues OPK has raised happens in many organisations.

A big reason for failure of Nokia was lack of courage in the top management to act decisively. The writing was on the wall, presentation after presentation internal futurists and external Management consultants had shown the top leadership since 2003 that industry convergence would create huge disruption and shift comparative advantages to new players from internet and PC space. Top management agreed with the assessments multiple times but always went for the "compromise solutions".

Firstly, it was clear that Symbian Operating System couldn't do the job, hence Nokia started an initiative called Meego/ Maemo with Intel that was promising to be superior to Android at the time. However, most of the resources within the company were still employed at churning Symbian OS phones and that created a huge resource crunch and denied any realistic chance for a new product line. You can call it classic innovator dilemma - from inside it appeared to be many satraps and a weak top leadership who couldn't call shots despite knowing what was needed.

Secondly, during 2003-2010 Nokia was aware of the external threats. Instead of facing them, it kept reorganising itself. As if, musical chairs will solve the problem.

Thirdly, Nokia sought to go on offensive against internet players by going into apps and services business e.g. Maps. It was a reasonable move. However, it went on to acquire number 2 players in respective industries a little bit cheaper. "Two turkeys don't make an eagle". Hence, it ended up being an also ran in many industries and profit share was creamed by other players.

Finally, After Olli-Pekka was replaced in 2010, the slide became even worse. Olli-Pekka was at least trying to stem the rot. The new guy, Elop came with his inclination to sell the business to Microsoft. At that point, Nokia had a choice to adopt a multi-os strategy like Samsung and produce some Android phones. It had strong brand and channel presence in emerging markets where it could made strong profit and bought time for turnaround. Due to vested interests , Mr Elop the new CEO chose to go with his former employer Microsoft. Microsoft was an also ran and he effectively hit the death nail for Nokia.

What killed Nokia? During OPK's leadership it was indecisive management that failed to take bold calls internally or externally. During Elop's leadership, it was vested interest.

05/07/2014, 10.27 pm

Both the CEO Professor Huy seem to find new words for old problems.What they call "emotional processes" is another moniker for a management that is unwilling to reorganize and change its capital allocation process. Allied Chemical faced a similar issue in the 1970's when 800 lb. gorillas in established SBU's that were becoming commodity businesses stomped down the new ventures inspite of the obvious need. One new VP was given a chunk of capital "ex cathedra" and told to feed the best candidates in the new ventures. The French saying that you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs applies here. As for not spotting the convergence of several separate industries, that was the genius of Steve Jobs in the year 2000; where was Nokia management when foresight was available? I knew the woman responsible for screen monitors at HP in the 1980's; she said she was looking 5 years ahead, e.g. to plasma ( which she did not name.) That's called environmental scanning in my book.

25/06/2014, 04.18 pm

One of the aspect could be incorrect estimation of perceived risks to the individual and organisation. Extraordinary use of rewards & recognition, which as a medium, sometimes scuttles the need to elevate individual as well as team performance. How much of R&R is enough is not yet known hence we see examples of prosperity of individual parts and not the whole of it. Conviction and Clarity of thought drive Confidence which inturn attracts Capital. The article quite aptly describes how all of it can be lost in a short span of time.

24/04/2014, 09.00 pm

In my humble opinion there are 4 wheels that lead many companies into limbo, let me describe as you know all car to move need wheels(4), the car represents the company, the wheels represent necessary tools to move the car ahead from any point to any other one. First wheel: Vision Second wheel: Flexibility Third: Capacity to adapt to new environment Fourth: Strategy Nokia has missed 2 of the 4 wheels 1:Flexibility 2:Capacity to adapt itself to new environment The leadership is compared to a driver, ask yourself who can move his ahead to a good direction with broken wheels?

24/10/2014, 03.16 pm

Dearest Seefar, I share your vision about companies success. I would love to add one more point - A Passion. It's like fuel, it's like fire. All big companies have 4 wheels running well. all GREAT companies have a passioned person who put the authentic inspired passion for the smoothest drive. Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Walt Disney, etc. No person - no more fuel. This is a human factor WHY we do what we do. What drives us? What drives the Leader to be the Leader? With deepest passion to all of us in co-creation of our personal experiences of mastering our brilliancy, Mila

04/04/2014, 04.41 pm

merci à Nathalie pour le partage de cet article intelligent car il donne à comprendre, et son premier mérite est de susciter réflexion & émotions... actions pourquoi pas?

27/03/2014, 02.26 am

Great article.

22/03/2014, 04.21 am

What other companies should take away from Nokia’s decline is not just “don’t be complacent,” but try to compete instead. For Nokia, this means knowing what kinds of innovations competitors are investing in to compete better. Like Nokia, BlackBerry also stumbled recently. This is a good look at what companies can learn from their mistakes - http://www.competing.com/2013/10/blackberry-company-b-and-forensic-strategy/

21/03/2014, 08.02 pm

60 years ago when the Dead Sea was still alive when I was in management school this phenomenon was called "suboptimization", meaning the promotion of the well being of components of the organization rather than that of the larger organization. Obviously there are emotional components in the dynamics of suboptimization but is it not true that the main problem is that the components are not working toward the well being of the whole?

28/03/2014, 10.54 pm

I could not agree more with you. Today I call this being trapped by legacy. Great companies are reluctant to disrupt themselves before others do and then it's normally too late. Today in the technology sector we are seeing massive waves of technology change that is enabling entire business model shifts and this has could many companies flat footed although these trends have been making progress for nearly five years. Solid article though.

20/03/2014, 06.37 pm

Interview Olli-Pekka is like asking John Sculley why Apple wittered and failed. It is a typical market lifecycle that faced by many once-great company such as Motorola, Kodak, Sony, Intel. The reasons for their failures can be attributed to a combination of complacency, underestimate the disruptive nature of new technologies, lack of vision, bad leadership and etc. To simply blame it on bad emotional management is way too simplistic.

20/03/2014, 05.26 pm

It's a brilliant article and so deeply true observations . I always say that lets not water the wrong weeds to ensure that the collective wholesomeness is not compromised on knowingly or unknowingly .

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• May 4, 2023

The rise and fall of Nokia - lessons from failure

Updated: May 8, 2023

One of the pivotal moments in life as we know it today was the emergence of cellular phones. The emergence of this sector gave rise to a plethora of brands, such as Apple, Redmi, Samsung, and the brand that was leading them all - Nokia. But sadly, what was a behemoth then is now just a footnote.

The once iconic cell phone that we saw in the hands of almost every adult, also named the Best selling Mobile Phone Brand in the world (October 1998), is now rarely even spoken about. So what went wrong? What resulted in Nokia’s downfall? Let’s explore the Nokia case study and find out what factors caused its tragic “from success to failure” story.

The following are the major factors that accounted for Nokia’s downfall:

Resistance to the only constant- Change: With the rapid pace of change, especially in technology, Nokia’s resistance didn’t help their brand. It kept producing older versions of its phones as compared to its competitors, who kept upgrading their phones. As a result, their market shifted to these newer, more affordable ones.

No strategic plan: Nokia’s rivals, such as Apple and Samsung, had a successful marketing strategy that kept their customers and potential ones interested and on the lookout for their new products. They both used the umbrella branding strategy (such as Samsung with their Galaxy series) that kept users hooked. Seeing this, Nokia tried to release its own line of hardware and software, but it already existed in the market because of its competitors.

Innovation: As the demand for their phones increased, Nokia focused most of its resources on its manufacturing rather than its innovation. Even with the release of their Nokia Lumia phone, they provided the most basic features with the dullest visuals compared to their competitors.

Overestimated strength: Nokia’s management believed that their market would wait for them and buy their phones regardless of what they produced and hence, didn’t focus much on what their competitors put out. They got stuck with outdated hardware and buggy software which resulted in Nokia’s downfall.

Check out these links to know more about the rise and fall of Nokia:

https://www.doersempire.com/why-nokia-failed/#:~:text=Initially%2C%20the%20new%20technology%2C%20urge,company%20on%20the%20strategic%20level -The history, fall and what we can learn from it.

https://www.feedough.com/why-did-nokia-fail/ -The rise, timeline of Nokia’s failure and its reasons.

https://startuptalky.com/reasons-why-nokia-failed/ -Reasons for Nokia’s failure and FAQs.

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9 Reasons Why Nokia Failed After Enjoying Unrivaled Dominance

Devashish Shrivastava , Akshat Hawelia

In the annals of mobile phone history, Nokia once reigned supreme with its robust devices and iconic brand. However, as the smartphone revolution took hold, Nokia's fortunes took a sharp turn, leading to a notable decline in its market share and influence. The fall of such a prominent industry leader begs the question: What were the reasons behind Nokia's failure?

This post focuses on the reasons why Nokia failed after enjoying unrivaled dominance in the mobile segment for several years. The ferocious and mighty telecom giant Nokia was well known for its products' hardware and battery life. By understanding the lessons from Nokia's journey, we can gain valuable insights into the rapidly evolving landscape of the technology industry and the critical importance of adaptation and innovation.

For years, it was the talk of the town. User satisfaction with Nokia’s mobiles was globally recognized. The company launched the first internet-enabled phone in 1996, and by the start of the millennium, Nokia had also released a touch-screen mobile prototype.

This was the start of a revolution in the mobile phone industry. The Finnish giant was the largest cell phone maker in 1998. Nokia overtook Motorola, a move that was hard to predict. So, what led to the downfall of Nokia? It wasn’t a single factor but a myriad of reasons, most of which resulted from Nokia's resistance to change. We present to you the six main reasons behind Nokia's failure.

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Reasons for Nokia Failure: Case Study

The resistance to smartphone evolution, the deal with microsoft, nokia's failed marketing strategies, moving too slow with the industry, overestimation of strength, lack of innovation in products, organizational restructuring at nokia, the symbian vs. meego os dilemma at nokia, failure to adapt and reposition.

In the fast-paced world of technology, companies that fail to adapt to changing trends and consumer demands can quickly find themselves left behind. Nokia, once synonymous with mobile phone supremacy, experienced a significant downfall due to its resistance to smartphone evolution. As competitors embraced the shift towards smartphones, Nokia's reluctance to fully embrace this revolution became one of the key reasons for its failure.

Nokia failed to take advantage of the Android bandwagon. When mobile phone manufacturers were busy improving and working on their smartphones, Nokia remained stubborn. Samsung soon launched its Android-based range of phones that were cost-effective and user-friendly.

Nokia's management was under the impression that people wouldn’t accept touchscreen phones and would continue with the QWERTY keypad layout. This misapprehension was the start of its downfall. Nokia never considered Android as an advancement and neither wanted to adopt the Android operating system.

After realizing the market trends, Nokia introduced its Symbian operating system, which was used in its smartphones. It faced usability issues and lacked the app support and developer ecosystem that rival platforms like iOS and Android offered. The clunky user experience and limited app selection hampered Nokia's ability to compete effectively. Also, it was too late by then, with Apple and Samsung having cemented their positions. It was difficult for the Symbian operating system to make any inroads. This is the biggest reason behind Nokia's downfall.

Nokia was slow to recognize the potential of smartphones and the shift from feature phones to touchscreen devices. They failed to anticipate the demand for devices with advanced capabilities, such as app ecosystems and touch interfaces. This led to a loss of market share to competitors like Apple's iPhone and Android-based smartphones.

Another reason for Nokia's failure was the ill-timed deal with the tech giant Microsoft . The company sold itself to Microsoft at a time when the software behemoth was fraught with losses.

Nokia's sales screamed the mobile phone maker's inability to survive on its own. At the same time, Apple and Samsung were making significant strides in innovation and technological developments.

It was too late for Nokia to adapt to the dynamic and rigorous changes in the market. Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia is considered to be one of the biggest blunders and wasn't fruitful for either side.

The partnership limited Nokia's ability to differentiate itself and left it dependent on Microsoft's success in the mobile industry . The Windows Phone platform struggled to gain traction, further impacting Nokia's market position. This case study provides valuable lessons for businesses considering similar alliances and emphasizes the importance of aligning visions, complementary strengths, and adaptable strategies.

Marketing plays a crucial role in shaping a brand's success and perception. In the case of Nokia, its decline can be attributed, in part, to failed marketing strategies that hindered its ability to compete effectively in the mobile phone market.

One notable misstep in Nokia's marketing approach was its unsuccessful implementation of umbrella branding . Companies like Apple and Samsung successfully adopted the umbrella branding model, with flagship products like the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy series acting as the focal point for expanding their product lines. However, Nokia failed to follow suit and capitalize on the umbrella branding strategy, missing out on the opportunity to create a cohesive and recognizable brand identity.

Additionally, Nokia's marketing efforts struggled to maintain the user trust that the company had built over the years. Inefficient selling and distribution methods further eroded consumer confidence and made it difficult for Nokia to reach its target audience effectively.

While Nokia attempted to regain momentum by introducing hardware and software innovations, these offerings were often late to the market and lacked the uniqueness that would have set them apart from competitors. Rivals had already released similar features and devices, diminishing Nokia's ability to capture consumers' attention and regain market share.

The failure of Nokia's marketing and distribution strategies played a significant role in its ultimate decline and exit from the mobile industry market. Without a strong brand identity, effective distribution channels, and timely innovations, Nokia struggled to compete with rivals who had successfully aligned their marketing strategies with evolving consumer preferences and market dynamics.

Nokia's failure to keep pace with changing technology and trends played a significant role in its decline. While the company had earned a reputation for its hardware, it didn't prioritize its software lineup, which proved to be a crucial oversight.

Initially, Nokia was cautious about embracing technical advancements in order to mitigate the risks associated with introducing innovative features to its phones. However, this approach hindered the company's ability to adapt to the rapidly evolving market.

The business needed diversification, but it was too late by the time Nokia realized this. Instead of being amongst the early initiators, Nokia transitioned when almost every major brand had already started producing awesome phones.

This case study shows Nokia's failure to keep up with changing technology and its delayed response to industry trends significantly contributed to its downfall.

Nokia overestimated its brand value. The company believed that even after the late launch of its smartphones, people would still flock to stores and purchase Nokia-manufactured phones. This turned out to be a misconception, as consumer preferences had shifted towards other brands.

People still make predictions that Nokia will retain the market leadership if it uses better software at its core. However, this is far from the truth, as seen today.

The company got stuck with its software system, which is known to have several bugs and clunks. Nokia felt its previous glory would help alleviate any sort of trouble. Unfortunately, things didn’t play out that way.

Unfortunately, the market dynamics had changed, and consumers were no longer willing to overlook the shortcomings of Nokia's software. Competitors had surpassed Nokia in terms of user experience and software innovation, leaving Nokia struggling to regain its position.

Nokia's lack of innovation in its products significantly contributed to its failure case study. While brands like Samsung and Apple came up with advanced phones every year, Nokia simply launched the Windows phone with basic features, failing to keep up with the industry's rapid progress..

The Nokia Lumia series was a jump-start measure, but even that collapsed due to a lack of innovation. The unattractive and dull features didn’t help. In the era of 4G, Nokia didn’t even have 3G-enabled phones. Nokia also came up with the Asha series, but it was game over by then.

Wrong decisions and risk aversion brought about the decline of the mobile giant. Nokia refrained from adopting the latest tech. Nokia's failure became a powerful case study that made organizations realize the importance of continuous evolution and enhancements. The journey of what was once the world’s best mobile phone company to losing it all by 2013 is quite tragic. Nokia's failure was not solely due to its lack of innovation but also its shortcomings in leadership and guidance. These factors, combined with its inability to adapt to market demands and technological advancements, sealed the company's fate.

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Nokia underwent a sudden and significant organizational shift by adopting a matrix structure driven by enhancing agility within the company. However, this abrupt change resulted in dissatisfaction among stakeholders, particularly as key individuals in top management departed from the organization. These individuals, who had played instrumental roles in establishing Nokia as a leading company, were no longer part of the decision-making process .

The shift to a matrix structure also brought about internal challenges, as stability in top management, a crucial element for organizational coherence, was disrupted. Over just five years, Nokia experienced two CEO replacements , preventing employees from fully adapting to new leadership goals and visions. The frequent changes in leadership created instability and hindered consistent strategic direction. The lack of continuity in leadership contributed to employee dissatisfaction and impacted the overall cohesiveness of the organization. Employees and other stakeholders found it challenging to align with successive CEOs, leading to a breakdown in communication and a sense of disconnect within the company.

Nokia Changes their Logo After 60 Years

Nokia's problem arose when its R&D division underwent a split, with one faction dedicated to enhancing the Symbian operating system and the other focused on developing MeeGo. The competing claims of superiority between the two teams led to internal friction, causing delays in the release of new phones. The company grappled with the challenge of harmonizing divergent technological directions, impacting its ability to bring innovative products to market in a timely manner. This internal competition within the R&D division created a complex dynamic, hindering Nokia's efficiency and potentially affecting its competitive edge in the rapidly evolving smartphone market.

Nokia's downfall can be attributed to its failure to analyze market trends and adjust its strategy accordingly. The company neglected the burgeoning smartphone market, ultimately missing a significant opportunity for growth. Rather than capitalizing on this evolving landscape, Nokia could have revitalized its position by enhancing its existing software, such as Symbian. Unfortunately, the lack of strategic foresight and adaptability led to a missed chance to stay competitive in the dynamic tech industry.

Moreover, the oversight in market analysis and strategic planning eroded Nokia's market share and diminished its relevance in the rapidly changing consumer electronics landscape. The company's reluctance to pivot and innovate in response to market dynamics ultimately contributed to its decline in the face of evolving consumer preferences and technological advancements.

The fall of Nokia can be attributed to a combination of factors that hindered its ability to adapt, innovate, and stay competitive in the mobile phone market. The resistance to smartphone evolution, missed opportunities, ineffective marketing strategies, and the deal with Microsoft all contributed to its downfall. Ultimately, Nokia's decline serves as a reminder of the importance of staying agile, embracing change, and continuously evolving to meet consumer demands.

Why did Nokia fail?

Not switching to Android, lack of innovation, not upgrading the software, and overestimating the brand value were some of the reasons that led to Nokia's failure.

What is Nokia?

Nokia is a consumer electronics company popular for its mobile phones. It is one of the largest mobile phone manufacturers in the world.

Is the Nokia company closed?

No, the company is still running, but it has shut down some of its plants.

What happened to Nokia?

Once a dominant force, Nokia clung to outdated software, allowing Android and iOS to surge ahead, leaving the brand lagging. Despite its focus on new technologies, Nokia's legacy now lives on in the realm of Android.

Why did Nokia fail to compete with Samsung and Apple?

Nokia didn't adopt Android and focused on its hardware more than its software, which is why it failed to compete against Samsung and Apple.

Are there any new Nokia smartphones coming in the near future?

Though Nokia might seem dominant on the phone front, the company occasionally comes up with some new phones/smartphone devices. Here are some of the Nokia smartphones that are likely to be launched in 2022:

• Nokia 2760 Flip 4G
• Nokia C21 Plus
• Nokia Suzume
• Nokia C2 2nd Edition

Who took over Nokia?

Nokia phones were robust and dependable companions of the pre-smartphone era. However, Nokia's Java and Windows phones failed to stand out in the market dominated by Apple and Android phones. The Android phone manufacturing companies like Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, Motorola, and other Chinese smartphone developers like MI, Realme, Oppo, Vivo, and the Apple IOS devices took over Nokia in the mobile sector.

What lessons can other businesses learn from Nokia's failure?

Nokia's failure highlights the importance of embracing change, anticipating market trends, and continuously innovating to meet customer expectations. It underscores the need for effective marketing strategies, strategic partnerships, and an unwavering commitment to adaptation and innovation in today's rapidly evolving business landscape.

Was Nokia's lack of innovation a significant factor in its decline?

Yes, Nokia's lack of innovation in its product lineup played a significant role in its downfall. The company failed to keep pace with rivals who consistently introduced advanced devices and embraced evolving market demands, which resulted in Nokia losing its competitive edge.

Why did Nokia go out of business?

Nokia lost its phone industry dominance by sticking to outdated software, missing the smartphone revolution, and experiencing a significant sell-off. Despite not going out of business, Nokia's cautionary tale highlights the vital role of innovation in a rapidly evolving tech landscape, with the company still present in network tech and patents.

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The Rise and Fall of Nokia – Why and How Nokia Failed?

The Rise and Fall of Nokia – Why and How Nokia Failed? 12 min read

During the early 2000s, Nokia reigned supreme in the mobile phone market, boasting a significant global market share. Back then, Nokia faced little competition as it offered highly acclaimed and popular products like the Nokia 1280, Nokia 5300, Nokia N91, and Nokia N95. However, the brand’s fortunes took a nosedive as it witnessed a gradual decline in market share, eventually ceding ground to rivals such as Apple and Samsung. In 2014, acknowledging its inability to sustain a presence in the mobile phone market, Nokia made the decision to sell its mobile phone business to Microsoft. What led to the downfall of this once mighty mobile industry leader in a mere span of ten years? This article delves into the events that unfolded at Nokia and the valuable insights garnered from its story.

Table of Contents

The rise of Nokia

1865: nokia was found.

Established in 1865 by Fredrik Idestam, an esteemed engineer in Tempere, Finland, the company we now know as Nokia had humble beginnings. Initially, the business focused on operating a pulp mill and producing paper goods. In 1871, a second factory was opened alongside the banks of the Nokianvirta river, providing the inspiration for the company’s eventual name, Nokia Ab. It was not until 1979 that Nokia ventured into telecommunications research and manufacturing.

Initially, their offerings predominantly consisted of radio equipment, desk phones, and televisions. In the same year, Nokia made the strategic decision to merge with Salora Oy, an enterprise specializing in electrical equipment. Subsequently, the mobile device business was separated from the merged entity, establishing Nokia – Mobira Oy as a distinct entity. This significant development marked Nokia’s official entry into the mobile phone manufacturing industry.

1984: Nokia’s first mobile phone

In 1984, Nokia made its debut in the mobile phone industry by introducing the Mobira Cityman 900 to the public. This mobile phone operated on the NMT-900 network, offering improved signal strength compared to existing networks. Additionally, with a weight of only 800g, it was significantly lighter than other portable products available at the time, such as the Mobira Senator weighing 9.8kg and the Talkman weighing under 5kg. During this era, mobile phones were considered luxury devices reserved for the elite, including aristocrats and royalty. However, due to the sleek design and advancements of the Mobira Cityman 900, it quickly became highly coveted among affluent individuals.

In 1987, a noteworthy incident occurred when a reporter spotted Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev using a Mobira Cityman in Helsinki. This occurrence led to the phone earning the nickname “Gorba,” further enhancing its reputation and desirability.

Recognizing the immense potential of the mobile phone market, Nokia-Mobira Oy underwent a name change in 1989, adopting the name “Nokia Mobile Phones.” The company remained dedicated to significant investments in research and development, aiming to continuously innovate and introduce new products to the market.

The Nokia 1011 marked the next major milestone in Nokia’s journey of innovation

In 1987, Nokia achieved a significant breakthrough with the introduction of a groundbreaking phone, known as ‘The Brick’ or the Nokia 1011. This remarkable device became the first mass-produced GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) phone, catapulting Nokia to new heights in the telecommunications industry. The Nokia 1011 boasted a compact design, measuring 195 x 60 x 45 mm, which was notably smaller compared to other phones available at the time. It featured a monochrome LCD display and an expandable antenna, offering users enhanced functionality and convenience.

Moreover, the Nokia 1011 showcased innovative features, including the ability to store up to 99 phone numbers in its memory and the capability to send SMS messages. These features, along with its compact design, made the Nokia 1011 an instant success upon its release, elevating Nokia’s reputation and influence in the telephony and telecommunications market. It is worth noting that although mobile phones were not yet widely accessible during this period, the Nokia 1011 garnered substantial acclaim and contributed to Nokia’s growing prominence.

1996: Nokia 9000 Communicator & Nokia 8110

In 1996, Nokia unveiled the Nokia 9000 Communicator, a groundbreaking phone that signaled the company’s strategic advancement. Priced at $800, this product ushered in a new era of capabilities, enabling users to access email, fax, and web browsing, while also providing word processing and spreadsheet functionalities. Despite industry recognition, the Nokia 9000 Communicator faced challenges due to its less user-friendly design and suboptimal user experience. Consequently, it did not achieve significant commercial success. Nonetheless, this product stood as a testament to Nokia’s commitment to technological innovation and breakthroughs, as the industry continually values advancements that push the boundaries of possibility.

That same year, the company also released the Nokia 8110 slider phone. The product was also nicknamed the “banana phone”, appearing in the popular 1999 sci-fi action film The Matrix.

1998: Dominating the global mobile phone market

In 1988, Nokia introduced the highly anticipated Nokia 6100 series, marking the dawn of a new era in mobile phone technology. This innovative product line showcased Nokia’s prowess and propelled the company into the global spotlight. The Nokia 6100 series featured a compact design, user-friendly buttons, and an LCD screen, offering consumers a seamless and enjoyable mobile experience. Additionally, the inclusion of the legendary Snake game, pre-installed on the phones, ignited a wave of enthusiasm within the user community. The exceptional popularity of the Nokia 6100 series translated into remarkable sales figures, with nearly 41 million units sold by 1998. This exceptional achievement propelled Nokia ahead of Motorola, solidifying its position as the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturer that year.

Besides the Nokia 6100 series, Nokia 8810 was also launched by Nokia in the same year. This is the first flagship phone without an external antenna with a sliding chrome cover.

With two groundbreaking and commercially successful new product lines, Nokia saw a jump in business results as the company’s net revenue increased by more than 50% year-on-year, operating profit increased. nearly 75% and the stock price skyrocketed 220%, resulting in an increase in market capitalization from nearly $21 billion to about $70 billion.

2000 – 2006: King of the early digital era

The year 2000 marked a significant milestone in the global shift towards the digital era, witnessing the emergence of groundbreaking technological advancements such as digital cameras, mp3 players, CDs, DVDs, and the advent of 2G and 3G networks. Amidst this transformative period, Nokia displayed remarkable adaptability by introducing new product lines that aligned with the changing technological landscape.

The Nokia 7650 represents Nokia’s initial response to the evolving mobile phone landscape. Released in 2001, it was the company’s pioneering device featuring an integrated camera capable of capturing and storing photos, accompanied by a vibrant color screen.

In the subsequent year, 2002, Nokia further expanded its product offerings with two notable releases. The Nokia 6650 was unveiled as the company’s first 3G phone, introducing users to the capabilities of this advanced network technology. Simultaneously, Nokia introduced the Nokia 3650, marking its entry into the Symbian software phone line. Notably, the Nokia 3650 featured a built-in camera with video recording functionality, adding an exciting new dimension to mobile phone photography.

In addition to its focus on the high-end market, Nokia also aimed to capture the popular segment. This led to the introduction of the Nokia 1100 in 2003, a budget-friendly phone renowned for its compact, user-friendly, and robust design that catered to essential functionalities like calling, messaging, and reliable connectivity across various telecommunications bands worldwide. The Nokia 1100 quickly gained traction, with approximately 250 million units sold in its debut year alone. This remarkable achievement earned it a place among the world’s best-selling consumer electronics products. By 2005, the cumulative sales of the Nokia 1100 surpassed an astounding 1 billion units.

In 2005, Nokia introduced its highly anticipated flagship series consisting of the N70, N90, and N91. These devices showcased significant advancements in design, camera functionality, storage capacity, memory, battery life, and speakers. At that time, these products were widely regarded as the epitome of technological excellence.

By 2007, Nokia’s business report revealed its commanding position in the global mobile phone market, boasting a market share of nearly 50%. The company’s revenue stood at approximately $150 billion, and its workforce consisted of around one million employees.

The downfall of Nokia

2006: a major change in nokia’s leadership and business strategy.

In 2006, a significant change occurred at Nokia as Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo assumed the role of chief executive officer, succeeding Mr. Jorma Ollila. Alongside this leadership transition, several new board members were appointed. Under this new leadership structure, Nokia made the decision to consolidate its smartphone and feature phone operations, emphasizing a focus on traditional phones rather than venturing into untested technologies. This strategic shift indicated a move towards prioritizing profitability over the pursuit of groundbreaking technological innovations.

Mr. Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo himself was known for his conservative approach to business strategy, often rejecting ideas for new products and technologies in favor of safer options that could generate revenue and profit in the near term. However, this strategic direction unexpectedly led Nokia into a downward spiral in the subsequent years, a decline that the company had not anticipated.

2007: Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone

In 2007, Apple’s launch of the iPhone, a competitor significantly trailing behind Nokia in terms of brand recognition, market share, and scale, captivated the world. The iPhone represented a revolutionary product in the mobile phone industry, signaling the end of the era of digital phones and heralding the arrival of the smartphone era. Its design diverged entirely from existing mobile phone models, featuring a minimalistic layout with only a Home button, power button, and volume controls, while all other operations were performed on a single touch screen. Powered by the innovative iOS operating system, the iPhone also introduced an application store that enabled users to easily download and install various applications via the internet.

In response to the iPhone’s remarkable success, Nokia initially responded with indifference, derision, and laughter, dismissing the new technologies of the iPhone as impractical and asserting that consumers had to pay an exorbitant price to own one.

Despite the introduction of the iPhone, Nokia initially experienced a marginal 3% loss in market share by the end of 2007. Nokia had valid reasons for its initial dismissal, such as the iPhone’s limited 2G connectivity in contrast to Nokia phones equipped with 3G connectivity. However, Nokia’s executives basked too long in their victories, leading to a series of subsequent missteps and challenges that ultimately plagued the company.

2008: Android OS was released

Following the triumphant release of the iPhone, Google made its foray into the smartphone market in 2008 with the introduction of Android, an operating system designed for mobile devices. Despite the potential opportunity to rival Apple by embracing Android, Nokia’s management remained steadfast in their confidence in the Symbian operating system. They pursued plans to develop their own operating system, MeeGo, underestimating the significance of Google and considering it to be an inconsequential player in the market.

In an effort to compete with its rivals, Nokia introduced the 5800 Express series in 2018, featuring a spacious and responsive touchscreen. However, the company faced a critical drawback—its Symbian software, serving as an operating system, proved to be inadequate and significantly lagged behind the more advanced iOS and Android platforms available at the time.

In contrast, the iPhone experienced a surge in popularity, with Apple witnessing a steady growth in revenue.

2010: Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was replaced by Stephen Elop

During the period from 2008 to 2010, Nokia encountered a series of product launches that failed to resonate with consumers and achieve commercial success. Concurrently, manufacturers of Android smartphones like Samsung and Huawei experienced substantial growth, further intensifying the competitive landscape. Faced with these challenges, Nokia came to the realization that significant changes were necessary to avoid stagnation and potential decline. Consequently, the company made the decision to replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo with Stephen Elop, who was recruited from Microsoft.

2011: Nokia partnered with Microsoft

In 2011, Nokia unveiled the N9 smartphone, which operated on its self-developed operating system called MeeGo. Regrettably, due to a rushed development process and a lack of expertise in operating systems, MeeGo encountered widespread issues, including security concerns and a limited selection of applications, which made it less appealing to developers. Consequently, the N9 faced an untimely demise, despite Nokia’s investment in a marketing campaign to promote the new product.

Following the disappointing outcome of MeeGo and the N9, Nokia sought a partnership with Microsoft to produce smartphones running on the Windows Phone operating system. Little did Nokia anticipate that this decision would become yet another misstep for the company’s management.

Following a collaborative effort, Nokia ventured into the Android market with its Nokia Lumia product line . This strategic move aimed to counter the decline in market share, leveraging the user-friendly interface design offered by the Windows Phone operating system. However, the Windows Phone platform still lagged significantly behind iOS and Android in terms of application stores. In an attempt to address this weakness, Microsoft made various efforts to attract developers, but these initiatives failed to yield substantial results, as Google and Apple had already established a stronger foothold in this aspect. Consequently, despite initial hopes, Nokia continued to experience a decline in market position approximately six months later.

2014: Nokia was on the verge of bankruptcy

In 2014, Nokia was on the verge of bankruptcy. With no other choice, Nokia had to sell its mobile phone business to Microsoft for just $7 billion.

After a period of time, Microsoft introduced the Nokia X and Nokia XL models, which ran on the Android operating system. However, these Nokia devices were criticized for their limited development time, resulting in a noticeable lag compared to other phone manufacturers, such as Samsung and Huawei, who had extensively optimized their devices for the Android ecosystem.

In subsequent years, Microsoft shifted its focus away from phone production, allocating fewer resources to the manufacturing of mobile devices. Instead, the company redirected its investments towards other product lines, including Windows, Office, Xbox, and Surface.

Now: Nokia is only a memory

Also Read: Case Study | How Nokia Built A Powerful Technology Brand

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A recap of the ongoing Nokia vs. Oppo patent dispute on its two-year anniversary

• July 6, 2023
• Hi Tech , Paralegal

Nokia entered into a patent licensing agreement with Oppo in November 2018 covering both standard essential patents and non-SEPs. This licensing agreement expired towards mid-2021 and both the parties could not agree on the renewal terms for these licenses. As negotiations broke down, Nokia filed patent infringement lawsuit against Oppo in seven countries, including Germany, in the month of July 2021. In Germany, Nokia filed 11 lawsuits in Mannheim, 7 in Munich and another 6 lawsuits in Dusseldorf.

Oppo, in its turn, countersued Nokia, opposing many of its patents, some of which were not a part of the initial dispute. As of July 2023, there are at least 9 such patent opposition cases ongoing in German courts. Nokia subsequently also initiated patent opposition proceedings against some patents owned by Oppo in Germany and other European countries.

As time progressed, more suits and counter-suits were filed by either party across the globe, including in 19 infringement courts and revocation proceedings with PTAB.

Nokia emerged victorious in some of the lawsuits that it had filed. In June 2022, Nokia won a case in Mannheim for a non-standard essential patent related to WiFi. It further received one SEP injunction in Mannheim in July 2022 and two more SEP injunctions in Munich in August 2022. While it enjoyed victory in Germany, in July 2022 an Indonesian court dismissed 4 lawsuits that Nokia had brought against Oppo.

Oppo also counter-sued Nokia in Germany and tried to seek injunctions against their base stations. After the August 2022 decisions in Munich, Oppo decided to indefinitely exit the German market. While Germany is a big market for smartphones, Oppo held less than 10% share of the market at the time of its exit and since it became impossible for Oppo to advertise its products in Germany after the injunctions, a temporary exit seemed like the most suitable solution.  

Nokia also got a positive outcome in the Netherlands where a court ruled in its favour in September 2022 regarding the ae patents that received the injunction in Mannheim. With that it also received certain setbacks when a Dusseldorf court stayed two of its cases in August 2022, a Munich court stayed one of its case in September 2022 and it withdrew an infringement case in Mannheim in October 2022 when it became clear that this patent could get invalidated. In November 2022, Delhi High Court in India also dismissed a motion by Nokia against Oppo related to interim patent royalty payments. Nokia further received mixed results in the year 2022 where a couple of its complaints were rejected in Dusseldorf, one infringement suit was stayed in Mannheim but it won a third injunction in Munich.

January 2023 did not start well for Nokia’s as one of its patents was invalidated in EPO proceedings. Nokia further received setback in Indonesia where its fifth lawsuit against Oppo was also rejected and 3 of its appeals against previous rejections denied. The same month a Dutch court also denied Nokia a preliminary injunction against Oppo regarding infringing two of its SEPs. Due to the invalidity proceedings in the German Federal court against Nokia, a Munich court also stayed its infringement proceedings pending the federal court decision.

In February 2023, EPO gave a preliminary opinion against two of Oppo’s patents in a suit filed by Nokia, finding them invalid as granted.

Nokia also initiated infringement proceedings against another BBK owned Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo, for the same SEPs as involved in Oppo’s case. It received an injunction against Vivo from a Mannheim court in April 2023. Vivo subsequently decided to exit the German market as well, following in the footsteps of Oppo and OnePlus.

In May 2023, Oppo was able to invalidate further two patents of Nokia. Meanwhile, in June 2023, Nokia was able to get injunctions against 12 resellers of Oppo and OnePlus phones in Germany who were importing these phones still stocking them. Curiously, these resellers also carry Nokia devices which are now manufactured by HMD Global, a company where Nokia holds a minor stake.

As the two-year anniversary of this patent dispute rolls in, both Oppo and Nokia have landed decisive blows to each other and continue to engage in lawsuits across many jurisdictions in Europe. Nokia wants Oppo to accept its new royalty terms, similar to what it offers Samsung and Apple. Oppo feels that the royalty rates demanded by Nokia are excessive, especially since it has a very different business model from other licensees of Nokia patents. Oppo and other smartphone manufacturers from BBK stable are low-cost players. Paying high royalty rates would affect their competitive advantage which relies heavily on the lower cost of the smartphones. As such, Oppo, OnePlus and Vivo have found it more prudent to exit the German market where they held a minor market share than agreeing to the terms offered by Nokia. While we do not foresee an immediate end to these disputes or a settlement in the near future in Europe, Oppo and Vivo have brought FRAND determination proceedings against Nokia in China. China is an important market for Nokia, one which it cannot exit like Oppo did in Germany. If these Chinese proceedings do not go in favour of Nokia and Oppo is able to get more injunctions in counter-suits against Nokia in Germany, then there is a possibility that Nokia might agree to settle at terms more favorable to Oppo.

Interested in A recap of the ongoing Nokia vs. Oppo patent dispute on its two-year anniversary ? Reach out to us.

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IMPACT : 10% improvement in manager behavior scores, according to direct report surveys

SCALE: 3,500+ line managers

SPEED: 2 years

When people start viewing challenges as opportunities, rather than as threats, they’re using what psychologists call a “growth mindset.” In doing so, research finds they radically increase the chances of succeeding at their given task.

In Nokia’s case, that task was turning two cultures into one.

Shortly after its 2016 acquisition of French telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia partnered with the NeuroLeadership Institute to create culture change by way of Nokia’s approximately 3,500 line managers. The story puts to practice a great deal of research showcased in NLI’s newest white paper,  “How Culture Change Really Happens.”

CONNECT, GROW, DECIDE

NLI knows from its research into culture change that employees must develop their growth mindset before they can do the work of adapting to new ways of behaving. Otherwise, they may shy away from new initiatives or actively fight against them.

Over the past two years, Nokia has rolled out three of NLI’s scalable learning solutions — digitized, science-based learning initiatives that help organizations across a variety of domains in culture, leadership, performance, diversity, and inclusion. 

Nokia’s solutions include  CONNECT: The Neuroscience of Quality Conversations , GROW: The Neuroscience of Growth Mindset , and  DECIDE: The Neuroscience of Breaking Bias . GROW has helped leaders cultivate their growth mindset; CONNECT helps them have higher quality conversations; and DECIDE helps employees use less biased thinking in everyday situations.

Nokia leaders took to the programs almost immediately.

For the pilot CONNECT roll-out, Nokia wanted a minimum participation rate of at least 40%; it got 64%. It wanted a satisfaction score of 5.5 out of 7; it got a 5.7. And it wanted to see signs of positive behavior change from both participants and their direct reports; follow-up surveys showed 90% of the feedback was positive or constructive.

“I recommend it to everybody within Nokia,” Pekka Pesonen, Manager of Organizational Development, told NLI.

Impact across thousands

Since the three programs have started rolling out, direct report surveys show a 10% jump in manager behavior scores. Self-report surveys from managers show a 20% jump.

These kinds of improvements show how important it is to build new habits to shape culture . (In fact, at NLI, we define culture simply as “shared everyday habits.”) At Nokia, those habits include conversations built on principles of social threat and reward , and bias mitigation strategies to make more effective decisions.

Hundreds of managers are still enrolling in Nokia’s three programs, which the company has branded Drive, Dare, Care. As each manager moves through the solutions, the culture as a whole will inevitably become more unified.

“Together with NLI,” says Michael Kirchner, Global Program Manager in Nokia’s  Organizational Development team, “we enhanced our change management capability, and helped our leaders to create an environment of trust and safety.”

Click here to view the full Nokia case study.

This article is the fourth installment in NLI’s new series, Culture Change: The Master Class , a 6-week campaign to help leaders understand the science behind creating — and sustaining — culture change.

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Business school teaching case study: can green hydrogen’s potential be realised?

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Jennifer Howard-Grenville and Ujjwal Pandey

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Hydrogen is often hyped as the “Swiss army knife” of the energy transition because of its potential versatility in decarbonising fossil fuel-intensive energy production and industries. Making use of that versatility, however, will require hydrogen producers and distributors to cut costs, manage technology risks, and obtain support from policymakers.

To cut carbon dioxide emissions, hydrogen production must shift from its current reliance on fossil fuels. The most common method yields “grey hydrogen”, made from natural gas but without emissions capture. “Blue hydrogen,” which is also made from natural gas but with the associated carbon emissions captured and stored, is favourable.

But “green hydrogen” uses renewable energy sources, including wind and solar, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis. And, because there are no carbon emissions during production or combustion, green hydrogen can help to decarbonise energy generation as well as industry sectors — such as steel, chemicals and transport — that rely heavily on fossil fuels.

Ultimately, though, the promise of green hydrogen will hinge on how businesses and policymakers weigh several questions, trade-offs, and potential long-term consequences. We know from previous innovations that progress can be far from straightforward.

Wind power, for example, is a mature renewable energy technology and a key enabler in green hydrogen production, but it suffers vulnerabilities on several fronts. Even Denmark’s Ørsted — the world’s largest developer of offshore wind power and a beacon for renewable energy — recently said it was struggling to deliver new offshore wind projects profitably in the UK.

Generally, the challenge arises from interdependencies between macroeconomic conditions — such as energy costs and interest rates — and business decision-making around investments. In the case of Ørsted, it said the escalating costs of turbines, labour, and financing have exceeded the inflation-linked fixed price for electricity set by regulators.

Business leaders will also need to steer through uncertainties — such as market demand, technological risks, regulatory ambiguity, and investment risks — as they seek to incorporate green hydrogen.

Test yourself

This is the third in a series of monthly business school-style teaching case studies devoted to responsible-business dilemmas faced by organisations. Read the piece and FT articles suggested at the end before considering the questions raised.

About the authors: Jennifer Howard-Grenville is Diageo professor of organisation studies at Cambridge Judge Business School; Ujjwal Pandey is an MBA candidate at Cambridge Judge and a former consultant at McKinsey.

The series forms part of a wide-ranging collection of FT ‘instant teaching case studies ’ that explore business challenges.

Two factors could help business leaders gain more clarity.

The first factor will be where, and how quickly, costs fall and enable the necessary increase to large-scale production. For instance, the cost of the electrolysers needed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen remains high because levels of production are too low. These costs and slow progress in expanding the availability and affordability of renewable energy sources have made green hydrogen much more expensive than grey hydrogen, so far — currently, two to three times the cost.

The FT’s Lex column calculated last year that a net zero energy system would create global demand for hydrogen of 500mn tonnes, annually, by 2050 — which would require an investment of $20tn. However, only $29bn had been committed by potential investors, Lex noted, despite some 1,000 new projects being announced globally and estimated to require total investment of $320bn.

Solar power faced similar challenges a decade ago. Thanks to low-cost manufacturing in China and supportive government policies, the sector has grown and is, within a very few years , expected to surpass gas-fired power plant installed capacity, globally. Green hydrogen requires a similar concerted effort. With the right policies and technological improvements, the cost of green hydrogen could fall below the cost of grey hydrogen in the next decade, enabling widespread adoption of the former.

Countries around the world are introducing new and varied incentives to address this gap between the expected demand and supply of green hydrogen. In Canada, for instance, Belgium’s Tree Energy Solutions plans to build a $4bn plant in Quebec, to produce synthetic natural gas from green hydrogen and captured carbon, attracted partly by a C$17.7bn ($12.8bn) tax credit and the availability of hydropower.

Such moves sound like good news for champions of green hydrogen, but companies still need to manage the short-term risks from potential policy and energy price swings. The US Inflation Reduction Act, which offers tax credits of up to $3 per kilogramme for producing low-carbon hydrogen, has already brought in limits , and may not survive a change of government.

Against such a backdrop, how should companies such as Hystar — a Norwegian maker of electrolysers already looking to expand capacity from 50 megawatts to 4 gigawatts a year in Europe — decide where and when to open a North American production facility?

The second factor that will shape hydrogen’s future is how and where it is adopted across different industries. Will it be central to the energy sector, where it can be used to produce synthetic fuels, or to help store the energy generated by intermittent renewables, such as wind and solar? Or will it find its best use in hard-to-abate sectors — so-called because cutting their fossil fuel use, and their CO₂ emissions, is difficult — such as aviation and steelmaking?

Steel producers are already seeking to pivot to hydrogen, both as an energy source and to replace the use of coal in reducing iron ore. In a bold development in Sweden, H2 Green Steel says it plans to decarbonise by incorporating hydrogen in both these ways, targeting 2.5mn tonnes of green steel production annually .

Meanwhile, the global aviation industry is exploring the use of hydrogen to replace petroleum-based aviation fuels and in fuel cell technologies that transform hydrogen into electricity. In January 2023, for instance, Anglo-US start-up ZeroAvia conducted a successful test flight of a hydrogen fuel cell-powered aircraft.

The path to widespread adoption, and the transformation required for hydrogen’s range of potential applications, will rely heavily on who invests, where and how. Backers have to be willing to pay a higher initial price to secure and build a green hydrogen supply in the early phases of their investment.

It will also depend on how other technologies evolve. No industry is looking only to green hydrogen to achieve their decarbonisation aims. Other, more mature technologies — such as battery storage for renewable energy — may instead dominate, leaving green hydrogen to fulfil niche applications that can bear high costs.

As with any transition, there will be unintended consequences. Natural resources (sun, wind, hydropower) and other assets (storage, distribution, shipping) that support the green hydrogen economy are unevenly distributed around the globe. There will be new exporters — countries with abundant renewables in the form of sun, wind or hydropower, such as Australia or some African countries — and new importers, such as Germany, with existing industry that relies on hydrogen but has relatively low levels of renewable energy sourced domestically.

How will the associated social and environmental costs be borne, and how will the economic and development benefits be shared? Tackling climate change through decarbonisation is urgent and essential, but there are also trade-offs and long-term consequences to the choices made today.

Questions for discussion

Lex in depth: the staggering cost of a green hydrogen economy

How Germany’s steelmakers plan to go green

Hydrogen-electric aircraft start-up secures UK Infrastructure Bank backing

Aviation start-ups test potential of green hydrogen

Consider these questions:

Are the trajectories for cost/scale-up of other renewable energy technologies (eg solar, wind) applicable to green hydrogen? Are there features of the current economic, policy, and business landscape that point to certain directions for green hydrogen’s development and application?

Take the perspective of someone from a key industry that is part of, or will be affected by, the development of green hydrogen. How should you think about the technology and business opportunities and risks in the near term, and longer term? How might you retain flexibility while still participating in these key shifts?

Solving one problem often creates or obscures new ones. For example, many technologies that decarbonise (such as electric vehicles) have other impacts (such as heavy reliance on certain minerals and materials). How should those participating in the emerging green hydrogen economy anticipate, and address, potential environmental and social impacts? Can we learn from energy transitions of the past?

Climate Capital

Where climate change meets business, markets and politics.  Explore the FT’s coverage here .

Are you curious about the FT’s environmental sustainability commitments?  Find out more about our science-based targets here

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Case Study Machang Manufacturing Company - Inventory Valuation Issues

What to know about the crisis of violence, politics and hunger engulfing Haiti

A long-simmering crisis over Haiti’s ability to govern itself, particularly after a series of natural disasters and an increasingly dire humanitarian emergency, has come to a head in the Caribbean nation, as its de facto president remains stranded in Puerto Rico and its people starve and live in fear of rampant violence. 

The chaos engulfing the country has been bubbling for more than a year, only for it to spill over on the global stage on Monday night, as Haiti’s unpopular prime minister, Ariel Henry, agreed to resign once a transitional government is brokered by other Caribbean nations and parties, including the U.S.

But the very idea of a transitional government brokered not by Haitians but by outsiders is one of the main reasons Haiti, a nation of 11 million, is on the brink, according to humanitarian workers and residents who have called for Haitian-led solutions. 

“What we’re seeing in Haiti has been building since the 2010 earthquake,” said Greg Beckett, an associate professor of anthropology at Western University in Canada. 

What is happening in Haiti and why?

In the power vacuum that followed the assassination of democratically elected President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, Henry, who was prime minister under Moïse, assumed power, with the support of several nations, including the U.S. 

When Haiti failed to hold elections multiple times — Henry said it was due to logistical problems or violence — protests rang out against him. By the time Henry announced last year that elections would be postponed again, to 2025, armed groups that were already active in Port-au-Prince, the capital, dialed up the violence.

Even before Moïse’s assassination, these militias and armed groups existed alongside politicians who used them to do their bidding, including everything from intimidating the opposition to collecting votes . With the dwindling of the country’s elected officials, though, many of these rebel forces have engaged in excessively violent acts, and have taken control of at least 80% of the capital, according to a United Nations estimate. 

Those groups, which include paramilitary and former police officers who pose as community leaders, have been responsible for the increase in killings, kidnappings and rapes since Moïse’s death, according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program at Uppsala University in Sweden. According to a report from the U.N . released in January, more than 8,400 people were killed, injured or kidnapped in 2023, an increase of 122% increase from 2022.

“January and February have been the most violent months in the recent crisis, with thousands of people killed, or injured, or raped,” Beckett said.

Armed groups who had been calling for Henry’s resignation have already attacked airports, police stations, sea ports, the Central Bank and the country’s national soccer stadium. The situation reached critical mass earlier this month when the country’s two main prisons were raided , leading to the escape of about 4,000 prisoners. The beleaguered government called a 72-hour state of emergency, including a night-time curfew — but its authority had evaporated by then.

Aside from human-made catastrophes, Haiti still has not fully recovered from the devastating earthquake in 2010 that killed about 220,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless, many of them living in poorly built and exposed housing. More earthquakes, hurricanes and floods have followed, exacerbating efforts to rebuild infrastructure and a sense of national unity.

Since the earthquake, “there have been groups in Haiti trying to control that reconstruction process and the funding, the billions of dollars coming into the country to rebuild it,” said Beckett, who specializes in the Caribbean, particularly Haiti. 

Beckett said that control initially came from politicians and subsequently from armed groups supported by those politicians. Political “parties that controlled the government used the government for corruption to steal that money. We’re seeing the fallout from that.”

Many armed groups have formed in recent years claiming to be community groups carrying out essential work in underprivileged neighborhoods, but they have instead been accused of violence, even murder . One of the two main groups, G-9, is led by a former elite police officer, Jimmy Chérizier — also known as “Barbecue” — who has become the public face of the unrest and claimed credit for various attacks on public institutions. He has openly called for Henry to step down and called his campaign an “armed revolution.”

But caught in the crossfire are the residents of Haiti. In just one week, 15,000 people have been displaced from Port-au-Prince, according to a U.N. estimate. But people have been trying to flee the capital for well over a year, with one woman telling NBC News that she is currently hiding in a church with her three children and another family with eight children. The U.N. said about 160,000 people have left Port-au-Prince because of the swell of violence in the last several months. 

Deep poverty and famine are also a serious danger. Gangs have cut off access to the country’s largest port, Autorité Portuaire Nationale, and food could soon become scarce.

Haiti's uncertain future

A new transitional government may dismay the Haitians and their supporters who call for Haitian-led solutions to the crisis. 

But the creation of such a government would come after years of democratic disruption and the crumbling of Haiti’s political leadership. The country hasn’t held an election in eight years. 

Haitian advocates and scholars like Jemima Pierre, a professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, say foreign intervention, including from the U.S., is partially to blame for Haiti’s turmoil. The U.S. has routinely sent thousands of troops to Haiti , intervened in its government and supported unpopular leaders like Henry.

“What you have over the last 20 years is the consistent dismantling of the Haitian state,” Pierre said. “What intervention means for Haiti, what it has always meant, is death and destruction.”

In fact, the country’s situation was so dire that Henry was forced to travel abroad in the hope of securing a U.N. peacekeeping deal. He went to Kenya, which agreed to send 1,000 troops to coordinate an East African and U.N.-backed alliance to help restore order in Haiti, but the plan is now on hold . Kenya agreed last October to send a U.N.-sanctioned security force to Haiti, but Kenya’s courts decided it was unconstitutional. The result has been Haiti fending for itself. 

“A force like Kenya, they don’t speak Kreyòl, they don’t speak French,” Pierre said. “The Kenyan police are known for human rights abuses . So what does it tell us as Haitians that the only thing that you see that we deserve are not schools, not reparations for the cholera the U.N. brought , but more military with the mandate to use all kinds of force on our population? That is unacceptable.”  

Henry was forced to announce his planned resignation from Puerto Rico, as threats of violence — and armed groups taking over the airports — have prevented him from returning to his country.  

Now that Henry is to stand down, it is far from clear what the armed groups will do or demand next, aside from the right to govern. 

“It’s the Haitian people who know what they’re going through. It’s the Haitian people who are going to take destiny into their own hands. Haitian people will choose who will govern them,” Chérizier said recently, according to The Associated Press .

Haitians and their supporters have put forth their own solutions over the years, holding that foreign intervention routinely ignores the voices and desires of Haitians. 

In 2021, both Haitian and non-Haitian church leaders, women’s rights groups, lawyers, humanitarian workers, the Voodoo Sector and more created the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis . The commission has proposed the “ Montana Accord ,” outlining a two-year interim government with oversight committees tasked with restoring order, eradicating corruption and establishing fair elections. 

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CORRECTION (March 15, 2024, 9:58 a.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misstated which university Jemima Pierre is affiliated with. She is a professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, not the University of California, Los Angeles, (or Columbia University, as an earlier correction misstated).

Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.

Char Adams is a reporter for NBC BLK who writes about race.

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For Filmmakers, O.J. Simpson’s Trial Was a Powerful Case Study

In 2016, both an FX mini-series and an ESPN documentary re-examined the polarizing criminal accusations against Simpson and the nation’s divided conversation about race.

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By Emmanuel Morgan

More than 20 years after the O.J. Simpson trial, long after the headlines had faded and the news cycle had moved on to other scandals, the polarizing saga was thrust back into the national conversation thanks to two very different projects.

“ The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story ,” an FX mini-series directed by Ryan Murphy, won nine Emmys in 2016. That year’s “ O.J.: Made in America, ” a nearly eight-hour film for ESPN, won the Academy Award for best documentary feature.

“It was a story that combined everything that obsesses the American people,” the legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said the day after Simpson died at 76 . Toobin’s 1996 book, “The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson,” inspired the FX series.

Toobin said the Simpson odyssey captivated the country’s psyche. There was love, violence, sports and Hollywood. Even a fugitive on the run.

Simpson had been a star football player , winning the Heisman Trophy in college and the Most Valuable Player Award in the N.F.L. But for many people, his athletic highlights are overshadowed by a highway chase involving a white Ford Bronco and murder charges in the 1994 deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.

As Americans followed the nine-month trial, their perception of the criminal case against Simpson, a prominent Black athlete who became an actor and a pitchman , was often split along racial lines. Simpson was acquitted in the criminal case and was later found liable for the deaths in a civil trial .

“I think the reason it still feels so raw is that it still feels like it’s today,” said Larry Karaszewski, a screenwriter for the FX mini-series. “A lot of times people think we’re at this post-racial moment, but it keeps coming back.”

Karaszewski said that like during Simpson’s trial, race was at the forefront of the national conversation when “The People v. O.J. Simpson” was being produced, during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watchman in 2012.

The mini-series focused on the Simpson trial, treating him as a secondary character while highlighting other key players in the courtroom , like Marcia Clark, the lead prosecutor, and Johnnie Cochran, one of Simpson’s prominent defense lawyers.

In contrast, ESPN’s documentary, an installment of the sports network’s “30 for 30” series, traced Simpson’s biography and contextualized it through the sports and socioeconomic history of the Los Angeles region. Its director, Ezra Edelman, has said he thought it was important to take that wider view.

“I was interested in the 30 years before the murders, the city, race and identity, and the juxtaposition with O.J.’s story,” he told The New York Times in 2016 . “This is a big American studies paper. This touches on everything in our culture.”

Through an ESPN spokeswoman, Edelman declined to comment after Simpson’s death. Several of the documentary’s producers did not respond to requests for comment.

Karaszewski said the distance from the trial allowed viewers of the FX series to watch the case with fresh eyes, without the emotional response to the verdict. And he and Toobin agreed that it also presented the saga and its characters — including Robert Kardashian, a defense lawyer whose family’s fame grew after the case — to new audiences.

“For those of us who lived through it, it brought it back up,” Toobin said, “but it introduced a whole generation of people who had no firsthand experience with the story.”

Emmanuel Morgan reports on sports, pop culture and entertainment. More about Emmanuel Morgan