Nokia is one of the leading mobile phone organizations. Nokia was established in 1865 by Fredrik Idestam. He starts from a paper mill it was built on the bank of Nokianvitra River in Finland. So, he named his organization "NOKIA" from this river. It moves towards the electronic track by merging it with Cable Company (Finish cable works) and rubber firm (Finish rubber works). From 1865 to 1967 Nokia dealt with paper, rubber, and cables. Nokia remained in this business for 100 years. In 1968 just twenty years ago when cell phones came into existence Nokia moved to mobile business. Here at this time three companies have aligned together to achieve success.
In the year of 1992 Nokia introduced its first GSM handset NOKIA-1011. After that in 1994 NOKIA-2100 was produced. This was the first handset having Nokia ringtone. In 1997 Nokia put snake game in their mobiles. Later in 1998 Nokia become the leader in mobiles. The internet facility was given to customers in 2000 and after two years 3g technology comes into existence. From 2002 to 2007 lots of mobile phones were developed. On that time Nokia was the 5th most famous and valuable brand in the world. The value of Nokia increased because it stepped ahead in the advancement of technology. There are many mobile phones introduced by Nokia its includes internet facilities, camera of 1.3 to 5 mega pixel with flash lights and touch screen are having good compatibility with all networks. In the year of 2008 Nokia and other supporting business managements was replaced with integrated business segment that is called OVI. There are many other IT and Business strategies combined in this organization.
Nokia is the one of the organizations who achieved fame in the world of mobile by aligning Business and IT strategies.
QUESTIONS:-
Identify and critically evaluate concepts of business values in terms of information, how information management delivers value to the organization and IT as part of the organizations business transformation.
BUSINESS VALUE IN TERM OF INFORMATION
The business value in terms of information depends upon the definition of information and business. Information is the processed form of data which an organization collects form general audience to feel their customers comfortable. On other hand the aspects of business is to fulfill the demand of the company and to make profit for the organization. To make this possible different organizations are aligned.
In Nokia, they do efforts to have global access rather than achieving a single goal. Nokia is always concern about the present as well as for future growth of the organization. The company always monitors the performance of employees and strategies being used by the organization. Building reputation, shaping corporate culture and reducing the risk factor in Nokia all are the responsibilities of the corporate department of Nokia. These factors play responsible role to increase the business values for the organization.
VALUE OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT IN THE ORGANIZATION
The role of information management is to provide the best information to the organization.
Nokia's information management system deals with the creation, storage and organizing, analysis, acquisition and use of the information in an intellectual manner so organization gain more profit. The information they present is complete and sufficiently rich for the use of Nokia. To gather information the information management system interacts with people to find out what their demands are and what actually satisfy customers.
IT AS PART OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION
IT plays vital role to transform the business of any organization. IT brought advancement in every business. Companies are turning to use IT technology to increase their revenue. The techniques used by business organizations before IT are time consuming and costly whereas IT provide fast and cheapest way to every task. IT is considered as the strongest means to transform business in Nokia. Now a day's numbers of mobiles are produced by using IT technology. Wireless networking, Bluetooth, games etc are introduced in mobile phones by Nokia. This has been made possible only with the help of IT technology.
Identify and assess the main features of the organization and explore common organizational purpose and environment using PESTLE framework.
MAIN FEATURES OF ORAGNIZATIONS
Every organization have different characteristic according to the management, infrastructure and information systems, companies policies etc all these are part of the organization. Nokia is also concerned about all these features. There are many other features of Nokia that differentiate it from other organizations. These are discussed below-
The most exiting feature of Nokia is the Service they provide. They have opened their service centers at different locations to help people that are using Nokia mobile phones. These centers are very helpful and provide free or very less cost service to their customers.
Nokia also provide high battery life to their mobile phones.
Nokia phones are also made up of strong material used for the external body.
The other most important feature of Nokia is internet.
"Connecting people", this is what the Nokia Communications Company is known for, thus, their products are now a symbol of communication and connection to different parts of the world. With the fast-changing society and technology, several companies are not utilizing the World Wide Web to make relations and transactions to different countries. In addition, with the increase of demand from consumers, the use of the Internet is much more efficient and effective. However, as an organization, Nokia also experiences problems regarding the use of the Internet for achieving their key marketing objectives" [1]
Nokia provides this facility on phones. Users can easily connect with any one through internet by mobiles they do not need any PC or laptop.
The functionality of Nokia is very simple anyone who does not have enough knowledge about it can easily use products of Nokia.
ORGANIZATIONAL PURPOSE AND ENVIRONMENT USING PESTLE FRAMEWORK
PESTLE - Pestle analysis is a frame work to understand the infrastructure of the organizations according to the Political, Economical, Social, Technological, and Legal factors those are considered to measure the business performance of the organization.
The PESTLE framework for Nokia affects the business and marketing planning, strategic planning, and development in business. PEST ensures the performance of the organization, alignment between business and information technology strategies.
Political factor: The government policies always affect the organizations environment. Nokia use to take identifications of customers before selling phones. For protecting customers assets warranty booklets are given with new purchase. Budget introduced by government also affect the cost of mobile phones.
Economical factor: Economically Nokia became one of the strongest organizations in the mobile industry. Nokia pays tax to the government according to the country where it is, the salary of employees is paid according to the laws or acts passed by government, these factors help in increasing the revenue of Nokia because the employees work hard when they got good salary.
Social factor: There is mobile tracking software introduced to protect phones from theft. The organization also deal with the social issues of the employees and always ready to heal them. The features are made to simple for those who do not know enough about mobiles.
Technological factor: Nokia uses IT to produced mobiles according to the needs of their customers. They uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Infrared, Text, etc facilities are given to their customers.
So, PEST ANALYSIS is vital to improve the business of every organization.
Discuss and critically assess the key theories on how the organization uses information to support decision making, control and coordination. Theories of corporate strategy - what it is and how it may be developed.
KEY THEORIES ON HOW THE ORGANIZATIONS USE INFORMAITON IN DECISION MAKING, CONTROL AND CO-ORDINATION
Information is the most important aspect in every organization. The only way to move forward is to get good data from general audience through concerts, seminars, etc, better information by processing and refining data and best knowledge to use that information in the organization.
Nokia always follow this way to compete with their rivals and to get best for their customers.
DECISION MAKING: The decisions making is a process of taking decision by using information about their customers and competitors. In decision making process, the organization considers views by stakeholders, management and staff of company and for the most importantly they try to detect their rival's strategy. Nokia first collect information about every single aspect and revise it through information audit (IA) department. Nokia use information that is about the needs of customers and market values to take decisions in producing mobiles.
CONTROL AND CO-ORDINATION: Information is also important for control and co-ordination. In Nokia, information used by employees is to get rise in the company and also to increase the revenue of organization. The information in the organization always helps employees to get directions for consistent behavior in the organization. In this way by making use of qualitative information, Nokia controls its resources and output.
If any organization has best employees, best data or information but they are not coordinated well then everything is value for null. The companies should first collect the data by different means and then use some refining methods to convert this data to useful information. Nokia has an information audit (IA) department which refines the data and improves the quality of the information which helps to the organization and co-ordinate. The IA department makes the information accurate, complete and up-to-date. They organize the information according to the different departments of Nokia so that information will be easily available to the employees.
CORPORATE STRATEGY
WHAT CORPOPRATE STRATEGY IS??
This is an approach by which organizations use to achieve their goals or objectives. By making use of corporate strategy organizations examine the factors that are associated with customers and the competitors of the organizations. The organizations think about the satisfaction of customers and the plans of their rival companies. The new ideas are given to organizations to improve in their performance. The corporate strategy is made to align policies and resources of the company and to realizing the needs of the customers.
HOW TO DEVELOP CORPORATE STRATEGY?? Corporate strategy is developed when organizations fails to achieve their corporate goals. The strategy has three levels i.e. business level, functional or departmental level and corporate level. To develop a corporate strategy for any organization, developers should have main program for which the strategy is going to develop, design for strategy, what are their goals, the right staff should be chosen, the coordination should be there, financial support's need to take care - that is how much a company can afford for plans to achieve their objectives.
Critically evaluate the main elements of the organization's structure identifying key managerial roles and mechanisms used to co-ordinate and control people at work.
ORGANIZATION'S STRUCTURE
"It defines how job tasks are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated to produced products and services according to organizational missions and objectives. Organizational structure is the way in which the interrelated groups of an organization are constructed."[2]
The organizational structure moves down from top level management that includes Stakeholders, Managers, Directors, CEO and to low level management which includes assistant controller, employee's etc.
"Nokia's organizational structure is designed to position them for a world where the mobile device, the Internet and the computer are fusing together."[3]
The Nokia's structure divides into corporate department, service providers, market management, network management and device unit. They have board of directors, foundation management, software management, etc. These departments are interlinked and at final step they combine data to get final product.
Figure-1: Structure of Nokia
Source: www.stephesblog.com [4]
KEY ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATION'S STRUTURE AND MANAGERIAL ROLE TO CO-ORDINATE AND CONTROL PEOPLE AT WORK
CHAIN OF COMMANDS: This specifies who will reports to whom in the organization. The classification is made from top to bottom level.
SPAN OF CONTROL: It means the number of employees a manager can easily direct towards their goals. In Nokia every department has its head of department who guide employees to move forward.
FORMALIZATION: Organization standardized into two categories higher level that is management and lower level considers working staff. Formally Nokia has different departments in the production of mobiles.
CENTRALIZATION: Directing subordinates to accomplish the objective of organization. In Nokia tips are always given to their employees to make sure they are moving towards one objective.
DECENTRALIZATION: The higher level management considers staff to take action in decision making. Nokia gives priority to their employees and to their customers to produce mobile according to their requirements.
WORK SPECIALIZATION: This element is used to assign work to experts of particular employee. The job divided into parts and assign to different subordinates. In Nokia tasks are assigned to professionals in mobile technology.
DEPARTMENTALIZATION: In this the jobs are grouped according to products, customers, functions to perform, etc. Nokia has different departments those serve in different fields in mobile communication.
All these elements help to have a good organizational structure.
Describe and critically appraise how to make information judgments about the organization's use of information in terms of its quality characteristics, and how to minimize communication gap between business and information systems management.
As discussed in above questions the information is vital for organizations. Companies are aligned with IT to get better information and to manage the quality of information.
The quality of information is essential for the following reasons:
Availability of information when it require.
Accurate information should be used.
To understand the fast moving environment in organization.
Quality of information is required in decision making.
To improve business performance as financially, marketing, operational.
Qualitative information is required to understand the needs of customers.
The judgment for qualitative information depends on four types of quality definition:
Exceeding or meeting to the customer's needs.
Requirements and conformity of information.
Value for money in organization.
Higher quality than competitors.
Quality of information depends upon DATA. So, data should be accurate, complete, consistent, valid and up to date.
The information judgment made in the Nokia is according to the need of their customers and to their business. The judgment made for information in Nokia is according to following aspects:
Meeting Customer's needs: Nokia's research center find wide range of sensed information from their customers. This data analyzed and used to provide better service.
Future user interface: The Nokia introduce features in new mobiles according the demands of new users. Data-sharing, internet all other requirements of new users will gathered to make product attractive.
Mobile platforms: High performance is the first need of every user. So, Nokia selects data which define the way to get architecture resulting mobile plat form for Nokia.
The information gathering in Nokia is done by the department of "Nokia Research Center".
MINIMIZING COMMUNICATION GAP BETWEEN BUSINESS AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
To minimize the communication gap, both IT and business organizations are aligned. To get better information, business companies are using information auditor (IA) to minimize the gap. There are three steps to bridge the communication gap:
Compatibility in Nokia: The software used in business managements should be compatible with their business requirements. The information management system should be designed according to organizations need.
Nokia's way of Communication: The communication is the key factor to remove communication gap. The Nokia uses a predefined model to communicate within the organization from top to bottom level. The staff uses same vocabulary while communicating. This helps to deal with customers.
Standards in Nokia: The standards are defined once in organizations. They use same standard to produce goods throughout the defined period.
Consolidation in Nokia: This step is used to remove redundancies in information or data. More effective and efficient information should be used.
Discuss and critically explore technology strategic IT planning, identifying the issues the organization has with IT planning.
The technological IT planning is the first need of organizations. This is process of defining business and IT goals. The strategies are required to protect data and business values. The IT strategic planning includes operational, informal, application, and technological models.
"The rapid development of new technologies has presented both opportunities and challenges for planners. On one hand, advanced technologies have presented planning professions tools which may be used to:
engage the public in critical decision-making processes;
analyze and present information in innovative and important ways;
utilize information in the assessment of future planning scenarios;"[5]
The planning for developing new strategies is based on the organizational behavior. If strategies developed well than the organizations will successfully achieve their objectives.
In Nokia every move in the company requires a plan. From the first move i.e. collecting information to produce mobile they make plan of how to go step by step to achieve goals. Nokia is ahead in running IT strategies successfully.
ISSUES THE ORGANIZATION HAVE WITH IT PLANNING
The biggest issue in IT planning is finding the platform and the operating system used to operate Nokia mobiles. Nokia started with GSM technology and for further it finds difficulty to introduce WAP services in mobiles. The Nokia wants to satisfy their customers providing Bluetooth, infrared, text, call waiting, camera etc in mobiles.
Nokia give preference to following strategic technologies:
Internet.
Enhancement in software applications.
Platform and operating system for Nokia.
Customer satisfaction.
Nokia makes its IT strategies for three different subfields i.e. production systems, R&D systems and sales systems. Issues related to planning in these systems are different for each, for production system gathering information, testing &verification, display products, batteries etc are require attention. The R&D system takes enough expense to research and development of Nokia. Sales system finds difficulties in promotion of product and attracting customers towards product.
All departments need planning because every project requires proper guidelines to move on.
Identify and explain the systems and their components used by the organization to identify information systems, the relationship between data, information and knowledge.
The Nokia use Symbian operating system to manage information system in their mobiles. The symbian system is base for Nokia phones. It provide absolute environment to operate phones.
Nokia's component for information system is people, data, equipment, and procedure. As people means software engineers, technicians, programmers, network manager all helps to identify the bets information system. The procedures are decision support system used for decision making. The equipments are components like hardware and software devices used to manage information in the organization.
Software components: There are two software's maemo and meego used in Nokia to manage the information. Maemo is used in latest mobiles.
Hardware components: The platform for information system in Nokia comprises of best hardware. For symbian system standardized API's are used.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE
There is a huge relationship between Data, Information and Knowledge. The relationship is organized in tree shape structure.
DATA: It is the raw and unorganized data collected from general audience points of view, their demands and needs. The data can be a fact used generally.
INFORMATION: The information is developed by refining and organizing data. The organization use information rather than data for decision process.
KNOWLEDGE: The knowledge is required for understanding the need of information in the organization. Knowledge helps to use correct information at the right place.
The information system of the organization depends on the relationship and coordination of these three terms. The good coordination results in better output.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, the alignment between IT and Business organizations leads to benefits. Nokia is the great example of alignment between IT and business strategies. The information system helps to organize and manage information used in organizations. The IT diverts the business of organizations with its emerging techniques. The values of business are increased as the quality of information increased. The PESTLE framework use to check the performance of organizations. Integration also helps in decision making and co-ordination. The managers plays vital role to control peoples. The alignment removes the communication gap as well. The strategies are developed to identify relationship between data, information and knowledge. At the end organizations lead to benefits by using good information system and integration of IT and Business organizations.
