Disclaimer: Contents in the blog are strictly based on my
opinions and are not meant to offend anyone. You are most welcome to agree or
disagree on any of the points. Also please ignore the grammar mistakes, if any.
Today
I woke up early in the morning. It was actually luck by chance as I slept very
late in the night. And suddenly it crossed my mind that today the breakfast
will be of Plain Parantha with Aloo sabzi – Bon Appetit. I know that for many
of you it is just another dish but for me it is a cuisine (as I am currently
living a hostel life). I freshened up quickly, picked up my bag and
went to mess.
And
suddenly all my dreams were shattered, the moment I saw Idli over there (I am a
North Indian who doesn’t possess much liking to South Indian dishes). I frowned
upon the worker and asked, “Bhaiya, Why
Plain Parantha is not there?” He said that the menu has been changed by the
Mess Committee. And I was like – What the #@$%? I ate cornflakes and went off
to my college.
But
suddenly I realized one thing that people want to be in their own momentum and
don’t want anyone to change that momentum. During our school days, we learnt
one concept – “In an irreversible process, entropy always increases” [Source].
But people want to remain in a state of stability. Actually, I am not much
interested in the Science part but the customer part.
Remember
your childhood days, when Nokia launched its first mobile phone in the Indian
market. The first mobile phone which came in my house was Nokia
5110. It took me just few days to get accustomed to its functioning and
some weeks to become expert so much so that I could easily navigate anywhere
blindfolded. But, as we all know, that at that point of time, we were not the end user of the phone but our parents and it took them many months to get hold of it. But after that, our parents also became accustomed to its
functioning.
We
need to understand one thing. The buying power was in the hands of our parents
and they were the real end users of the product because that was the time when
mobile phones just made an entry in the Indian market and they were only meant for calling and messaging. Now, this customer segment was not much
tech-savvy. They were reluctant to learn this technology. That’s why Nokia made
the functioning of their mobiles extremely user-friendly. All models of Nokia
had similar functioning so that the customer doesn't feel alien when he/she
buys a new Nokia model. The customer can use the new model without any problem.
Now,
at that point of time, other brands were also making the entry in the Indian
market. But they were not able to perform well. And one of the possible main
reasons was that people got accustomed to Nokia products and its functioning.
According to them, if they will switch to other brands, they need to again understand
the functioning of that new product. And the credit goes to the Design team of
Nokia India. Nokia made people dependent on their brand and ruled the Indian
market for around 8 to 9 years.
But,
in the late 2000s, evolution was happening in the Indian market. Consumer’s
disposable income started increasing and India gradually saw a huge number of
youth in the population. This segment was much tech-savvy as compared to their
previous generation. That was the time when many developments were happening in
this mobile phone category. Mobile phone was now not just a phone but a pocket
internet which can be used for e-mails, etc. In 2007, Apple launched iPhone and
this led to the beginning of decline stage for traditional mobile phones with
keypad.
Nokia
got lost in this storm of sudden developments and couldn't able to cope up with
the competition and the rest is history.
The
point is that at one point of time, Nokia was an undefeatable brand in the
Indian market because of its design, distribution, and marketing. But it was
not able to adapt itself to the changing market conditions. Had Nokia predicted
this trend and disrupted its own product portfolio by introducing something
like iPhone and features like mobile internet, etc. who knows that today Nokia might have been the King of the Mobile
Phone market.
This story tells us one thing that although it is important for Brands to be dynamic in adapting the market conditions but they should also maintain some level of standardization. Now, where that standardization needs to be maintained, that's companies' decision.
Thank
You
By
Rishabh
Bhardwaj
PGDM
2013-15
IIM
