HRM410- Strategic Staffing

Please see the “Structured Interview Form Instructions” document for detailed guidelines about this assignment BEFORE you submit it. Type your responses in the text table boxes below (the right side, empty boxes) as indicated in this sample:

Sample info regarding how to fill in table:

Please title this document with your last name, then first initial and assignment name (e.g. BrownPInterviewQsnts.docx) before loading it to your Dropbox.

The Rise and Fall of Nokia in Mobile Phones

Nokia emerged from Finland to lead the mobile phone revolution. It rapidly grew to have one of the most recognisable and valuable brands in the world. At its height Nokia commanded a global market share in mobile phones of over 40 percent. While its journey to the top was swift, its decline was equally so, culminating in the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft in 2013.

With a young, united and energetic leadership team at the helm, Nokia’s early success was primarily the result of visionary and courageous management choices that leveraged the firm’s innovative technologies as digitalisation and deregulation of telecom networks quickly spread across Europe. But in the mid-1990s, the near collapse of its supply chain meant Nokia was on the precipice of being a victim of its success. In response, disciplined systems and processes were put in place, which enabled Nokia to become extremely efficient and further scale up production and sales much faster than its competitors.

Between 1996 and 2000, the headcount at Nokia Mobile Phones (NMP) increased 150 percent to 27,353, while revenues over the period were up 503 percent. This rapid growth came at a cost. And that cost was that managers at Nokia’s main development centres found themselves under ever increasing short-term performance pressure and were unable to dedicate time and resources to innovation. While the core business focused on incremental improvements, Nokia’s relatively small data group took up the innovation mantle. In 1996, it launched the world’s first smartphone, the Communicator, and was also responsible for Nokia’s first camera phone in 2001 and its second-generation smartphone, the innovative 7650. Nokia’s leaders were aware of the importance of finding what they called a “third leg” – a new growth area to complement the hugely successful mobile phone and network businesses. Their efforts began in 1995 with the New Venture Board but this failed to gain traction as the core businesses ran their own venturing activities and executives were too absorbed with managing growth in existing areas to focus on finding new growth.

Corporate culture is one of the strategic and competitive advantages of Nokia. “Connecting people” is the catch phrase which means the physical facilities of the company. Nokia buildings hold the strong corporate image. Nokia has four main values and principles at his heart of its corporate philosophy: customer satisfaction, respect for individuals, achievement and continuous learning. However, there are some basic differences between organisational culture and national culture. These are: leadership style, organisational policies and procedures, organisational and operational structure, recruitment and selection procedures and measuring the performance of the employees and reward systems, global team and leadership development.

Between 2001 and 2005, a number of decisions were made to attempt to rekindle Nokia’s earlier drive and energy but, far from reinvigorating Nokia, they actually set up the beginning of the decline. Key amongst these decisions was the reallocation of important leadership roles and the poorly implemented 2004 reorganization into a matrix structure. This led to the departure of vital members of the executive team, which led to the deterioration of strategic thinking. By this stage, Nokia was trapped by a reliance on its unwieldy operating system called Symbian. While Symbian had given Nokia an early advantage, it was a device-centric system in what was becoming a platform- and application-centric world. To make matters worse, Symbian exacerbated delays in new phone launches as whole new sets of code had to be developed and tested for each phone model. By 2009, Nokia was using 57 different and incompatible versions of its operating system.

At the same time, the importance of application ecosystems was becoming apparent, but as dominant industry leader Nokia lacked the skills, and inclination to engage with this new way of working. By 2010, the limitations of Symbian had become painfully obvious and it was clear Nokia had missed the shift toward apps pioneered by Apple. Not only did Nokia’s strategic options seem limited, but none were particularly attractive. In the mobile phone market, Nokia had become a sitting drop to growing competitive forces and accelerating market changes. The game was lost, and it was left to a new CEO Stephen Elop and new Chairman Risto Siilasmaa to draw from the lessons and successfully disengage Nokia from mobile phones to refocus the company on its other core business, network infrastructure equipment.

Questions

Q1. Discuss the main competitive advantages used by Nokia?

Q2. How Nokia lost its position to another competitors?

Total: (500 words).

Explain the impact on US export and import if the US dollar has depreciated in comparison with other currencies. For example, the exchange rate for the Canadian dollar was 1.36 per U.S dollar in 2003. Now in 2020, it is 1.31 Canadian dollars per U.S.dollar under this case the dollar has suffered a slight depreciation. Also, when the dollar has depreciated in the case of the Chinese Yuan from 8.27 in 2003 to 6.69 yuans in 2020 per U.S dollar. Also, when there is not either appreciation or depreciation from 2003 to 2020 which is the case of Saudi Arabia currency its exchange rate remains the same 3.75 Riyals per dollar since 2003. Then explain the impact of U.S. exports and imports under these scenarios.

On January 1st 2020, B Ccompany Acquired 12,500 of the 50,000 shares (25%) of the common stock of C company for $30 per share. Per C company's annual report for the year ending 12/31/2020 they reported a net income of $210,000 and declared/paid total cash dividends of $100,000. C Company's stock price had a fair value of $31 per share on December 31, 2020.

After considering the impact of the above information, complete the table below assuming significant influence and no significant influence.

You are an executive in your company. A senior executive of your key competitor has recently interviewed you extensively for a more lucrative position with this competitor. Having not heard back from the interviewer, you did some investigation and found out that, this was a fake interview aimed only at gaining competitive intelligence. You know that this fake interview is a violation of the Christian religious view of ethics.

a. Explain why the fake interview violated the Christian religious view of ethics as discussed in your READ assignment. It is important to align your worldview claims to those expressed in the READ assignment. Don’t go on a tangent with any other personal beliefs.

b. Which of the other view(s) of ethics discussed in Chapter 5 (i.e., except religious) does this fake interview exemplify?  

Assume that TDW Corporation (calendar-year-end) has 2020 taxable income of $656,000 for purposes of computing the §179 expense. The company acquired the following assets during 2020: (Use MACRS Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5.)

a. What is the maximum amount of §179 expense TDW may deduct for 2020?

b. What is the maximum total depreciation, including §179 expense, that TDW may deduct in 2020 on the assets it placed in service in 2020, assuming no bonus depreciation? (Round your intermediate calculations and final answer to the nearest whole dollar amount.)

At January 1, 2020, Betty DeRose, Inc. reported paid-in capital - treasury stock of $2,000 and retained earnings of $49,000. Betty DeRose, Inc. entered into the following transactions during 2020: a. Re-acquired 5,000 shares of its $8 par value common stock by paying $18 per share. b. Re-issued 900 of the shares that were re-acquired in (a) for $21 per share. c. Re-issued 1,200 of the shares that were re-acquired in (a) for $13 per share. d. Re-issued 800 of the shares that were re-acquired in (a) for $20 per share. e. Re-issued 1,100 of the shares that were re-acquired in (a) for $17 per share. Calculate the balance in the paid-in capital - treasury stock account after all five transactions above are recorded.

The problem of many developing businesses has always been attributed to insufficient or lack of capital to run these enterprises. But on taking an MBA course at the University, you have come to realize that most businesses in Ghana and Africa fail not because of capital adequacy issues but rather, human resources management issues. What significant expectations would you give to all HR managers as needed competences to be equipped with if you are the consultant general to businesses in Ghana? Discuss these factors or requirements in not more than One and half (11 /2) pages.