Keywords: design, design management, Scandinavian design, Nokia

1. Design and Design Management
Past and present of Scandinavian Design and Nokia
Sandra Cecet,
4118782
Marcela Izaguire,
4141652
Sanya Khanna,
4122844.
Gunjan Singh,
4118707
Mart Veeken
1269976
Master SPD
ABSTRACT in a complex hybrid practice of Design Management.
Design as a discipline is young and dynamic, but the Design Management is an academic area that straddles
impact of design over society and cultures has changed the disciplines of design and management, as well as
a lot over the decades. It has moved on from being the practice of managing designers and the emerging
beautiful wallpaper patterns to solving problems for corporate interest in the design concept. (Johansson and
agriculture and corporate strategies. The authors trace Woodilla, 2008). Managing design and incorporating
the journey of design and the evolution of design design thinking in management practices have emerged
management and the role it plays in the success of an as the present day success mantras.
organization. They study, why and how Nokia as a This paper studies the impact of efficient design
company with a strong design and cultural background management on organizations over a period of time and
and holistic approach go wrong in managing and we also look at how design education is evolving to rise
positioning its future ( design and) product strategy ? up to it. We focus on Scandinavian design, its
Despite the achieved pinnacles of growth and success influences and how they are trying to incorporate
why couldn’t keep up with the new market trends and is design, business and technology to propagate a cross
going downhill? functional innovative approach Being a Finnish
Keywords company, which takes a lot of inspiration from the
Scandinavian design philosophy, we studied Nokia as a
Design, Design Management, Scandinavian Design, case to illustrate the importance of efficient
Nokia. management of design and need for design (driven
innovation) thinking in management.
INTRODUCTION
The meaning of Design has evolved over the years and DESIGN AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
its contribution has graduated from being a surface As Design slowly demarcated itself as a separate stream
decoration to the driving force behind renewing of knowledge from art and architecture, tracing the birth
organisational strategies (Verganti, 2009; Ravasi and history of design is quite complex and is still open
Lojacono, 2005). Different cultures all over the world to a lot of discussions.
developed their own distinct style of design like
Scandinavian Design, German Design etc and in doing According to Krippendorf (1989), the etymology of
so influenced each other as well as other disciplines design goes back to the Latin de+signare which means
with their practices. We try an derive from, how the making something, distinguishing it by a sign, giving it
influence of a culture is reflected in the design significance, designating its relation to other things,
philosophy and management of a company and how it owners, users or goods.
is represented in its products. One may say that one of the biggest milestones in
Design and Management, as two different paradigms or evolution of design was the setting up of the classical
schools of thought influenced each other and developed school of Bauhaus in 1919. The World Wars lead to
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2. slowing down of the design activity but in the 1950s Dunne and Martin (2006) present the reasons and
there was a rise in the demand for designers. Many advantages to involve design thinking into the field of
different universities in Europe and America started to management and discuss the feasibility that this
teach Industrial Design. Apart from Germanic Bauhaus thinking can address the problems affecting business
design, American design and Scandinavian design schools. Designers visualize a managerial problem as a
emerged as other schools of thought. Eventually, design system of structures, patterns and events, and
came to be regarded as an important asset in the success understand the impact of changes of one component on
of products, organization and brand identity. Gradually, the others, and on the system as a whole. The design
design managers like Stefano Marzano, now, CEO thinking business approach is currently presented in
Philips Design, pioneered brand repositioning and successful companies and, the important fact is that it is
strategy formulation and re-emphasized the potential different from the conventional management thinking
role of design. taught by business schools.
Traditionally, design management was seen as limited At present, there are more than 60 universities around
to the management of design projects. However, over the world, which are teaching Design Management and
the time it has developed to other aspects of the many business universities, which are integrating
organization, on functional and strategic level. design courses as part of their academic structure.
Nowadays design is a strategic asset in brand
differentiation and product quality. Effective design SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN, DESIGN EDUCATION,
management is not a panacea for a company, but it INFLUENCES ON OTHER DESIGN CULTURES
significantly contributes to success.
One of the major styles of design that emerged in the
Kathryn Best (2010) captures this term as “the 1950s was Scandinavian design, which started from the
management of the relationships between different countries of Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden and
disciplines (such as design, management, marketing and Finland.
finance) and different roles (such as clients, designers,
project team and stakeholders).”She mentions that According to Halen and Wickman (2003), Scandinavian
design management deals with the question of how to Design became a worldwide term when the exhibit of
bring people, projects and processes together in a ‘Design in Scandinavia’ travelled across North America
collaborative way, which forms a financially viable and for three years, 1954-57. This exhibition played a
delightful experience. highly influential role in the development of a new type
of modernism in the USA.
’Design in Scandinavia’ was
Cooper and Press (1995) state that ‘design management a tremendous success with the commercial aspects, as it
is the application of the process of management to the stimulated a strong buying interest on part of the
processes of innovation and design. They add an American consumers. After 1954, more than 3000
intriguing aspect to the management of design that it ‘is retailers were handling decorative items made in
about forecasting passion for betterment and linking it Scandinavia.
to the fulfillment of corporate goals and profitability.’
By the words ‘passion for betterment’ they mean Scandinavian design as a design philosophy emphasizes
passion for things, for the people who use these things, on simple designs, minimalism, functionality and low
for their quality of life and aspirations. cost mass production. It is based on the idea of beautiful
and functional everyday objects made affordable to all,
The term design management includes a semantic and not just the rich and powerful. This acted as the
contradiction and can be interpreted in two different core theme in development of modernism and
ways: (1) managing design and (2) designing functionalism, and was seen completely realized post-
management (BolandandCollopy, 2004). This WWII (World War II).
difference refers to the traditional understanding of
design management as well as to a relative new Finnish design played an integral and influential part of
approach of integrating design thinking as a mental Scandinavian design, and was marked by its closeness
concept in different business functions. to nature. Represented by an honest and open feel for
materials, stark simplicity, and refined frugality
Design thinking is the mental process and way of alongside the unrestrained and exuberant joy of creation
reasoning that designers use. This results from the (Abrams, 1982).
nature of a project - based workflow around wicked
problems. Nokia problems could be described as Finnish design is based on ancient folk traditions,
‘wicked’ in nature. Wicked problems are defined as which, over the centuries, have developed from the
“class of social system problems which are ill- interaction between the ecology of the country and the
formulated, where the information is confusing, where national character of its people. In design, this quality
there are many clients and decision makers with manifests itself in respect for materials and for organic
conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the forms. Since high and reliable functional and aesthetic
whole system are thoroughly confusing”. (Churchman, standards have been attained in household goods, the
1967) present trend is towards solving specific problems:
special equipment needed by the disabled, aids for old
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3. people. The prominent feature of Finish design today is
creating a well-planned environment that is suitable for
everyone. These values reflect the new age term of’ Case Study Nokia
user centered design’, which is practiced by the
How Nokia grew to a global giant – Example of
Finnish designers and forms an integral part of their
entering the Emerging Markets
design philosophy.
Nokia started in the GSM business in the middle of the
John Kao (2009) identifies Finland as the second
90’s when telecommunication (telecom) was coming
innovator country worldwide. This asks for creation of
up. Nokia entered emerging markets as one of the first
an education system that supports innovation in all
and became a world leader in the telecom market. A
possible aspects of knowledge. A “Design Factory”
few factors contributing to the quick development of
that will focus on human centered or universal design
the telecom were the open competitive market due to
for products that can be used by any adult, regardless of
deregulation in the national telecommunication
age of physical ability. So, it is not surprising that
monopoly and the rapid growth of the GSM network in
design management is included in as university
1991(2)
programme in Finland.
External factors alone were not responsible for
The Finnish holistic approach to innovation manifests
success, internal decisions led to growth of the
itself in the form of the Aalto University, which the
company too. Key elements such as continuous
result of the merger of three established, universities:
investments in R&D created a reliable technology and
Helsinki’s School of Economic (HSE), University of
simplified it for advantage in economies of scale.
Art and Design Helsinki (Taik), and University of
Technology (TKK). TaiK is considered one of the Importance of design for Nokia
pioneers in the diffusion of Design Management
education. In 1991, it founded the Institute of Design When Nokia started to design their mobile phones they
Leadership and Management and established an focused on differentiation of their products. Their
international training program. Furthermore, it unique selling point was the personalization of the
organized the first conference focused exclusively on phones. According to Toni-Matti Karjalainen (2003) the
Design Management issues. This program has evolved mobile phones were designed for “people with a social
into the International Design Business Management character” and the design was an addition to the
Program (IDBM), which is currently a part of the Aalto software that Nokia adopted. Each phone in the product
University. line had it’s own characteristics starting with the Nokia
3310 as a basic phone for the private market.
As a Finnish company, Nokia is a practical example of
the Finland large-scale initiative to develop an An important feature of the Nokia mobile phones was
innovation system combining academic collaboration, the adjustable cover (Best, 2010). In this way the
research institutions and structures for business in customers could choose their personal design. The
support of an overall national innovation strategy. design itself was not too edgy, and the phone was
affordable for most customers. Due to use of low cost
Since 2006, Nokia has been working with a global materials with high durability and avoidance of
multidisciplinary design unit by forming teams in expensive solutions, the cost price was kept low. The
industrial design, materials specialists, psychologists, recognizable parabolic lines in which buttons were
researches, anthropologists, engineers and interaction arranged almost became an icon for mobile phones. Not
design, all guided by a design management team. Based only the physical design gave success to the product,
in four main design studios in Finland, UK, China and also the interface design contributed to the success of
US, these global teams are responsible for the entire Nokia. New users didn’t find them selves lost, and it
design process, from strategy and conceptualization to soon became the favorite first phone.
product development for Nokia’s complete product
portfolio. This form of organizational structure driven Design Management of Nokia
by design management remarks the fact that Nokia has The success of the Nokia products came initially from
based design as its core competence to innovate in the the decisions and strategies of the management team.
digital mobility market. Nokia focused a lot on R&D and had up to 50% of
patents in the mobile market (Boland, 2004). They
followed a strategy of penetrating in niche markets and
then expanding in them. The management of Nokia
chose an aggressive way of competing by producing a
lot of different mobile devices for each niche, which
they could easily expand with sequels. Unlike
companies as Motorola and Samsung, who expanded
their technology in other classes, Nokia remained
focused on the broad mobile market.
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4. Besides hardware, Nokia adapted to improvise their user interface (UI). Initially in the mobile phone market, software
interfaces were built up from scratch but Nokia adapted to user-centered approach for their newer devices. Product
development time was cut from years to months; resulting devices looked less intimidating pieces with a human touch.
Introduction in the Asian market
Apart from Europe and the US, Nokia faced great success in Asia where they soon became market leaders (Churchman,
1967). India is a great example of how Nokia captured this emerging market. Differences from the developed world acted
as good triggers. The hot-dusty climate and lack of electricity in some parts were problems that emerged after extensive
research. Nokia responded to this with dust-proof and none slippery covers. Nokia 1100, regarded as the ‘Made in India’
phone, supported a built in flashlight. This was a huge success in the mass market, and sold epidemically across
hinterlands. Above all, Nokia entered the market with great and relevant communication campaigns for India.
How could competitors like HTC and Apple catch up quickly with Nokia
Nokia with its high-end business phones like the 9000, was the first to
support smart phone functions like navigation, etc., but was not a big
success due its size and heaviness. After that they created another failure,
the Nokia N-Gage because the focus was too much on gaming (it was a mix
between a Gameboy and a Smartphone).
N-Gage
Nokia 9000
In 2006 Nokia (50,2%) was the leader
in Smartphones and Symbian was the
leading OS (Operating System) of Smartphones’ (67%), and the take over
happened. In 2007 Apple entered the market with a new product, the Iphone
(Cooper, 1995). Besides the capacitive touch, its product value came from the
iTunes music and video service. This service was a huge success with the existence
of Ipod, and became an added value for people to find this integrated with a mobile
phone. Next came the Application (apps) store, which gave freedom for developers
to create for the iPhone. Users loved the thousands of free and paid apps. Symbian
was facing issues with the programming of newer interfaces. Though Symbian
devices still were market leaders with the S40 platform for lower end devices, S60
smart phones started loosing market share.
Iphone OS and android were new open systems; Nokia still invested money and time on developing Symbian to more UI
supportive versions like Maemo, and then came the collaboration with Intel for MeeGo. These were highly unstable OS,
and reduced product delivery time for the upgraded interactive features. In the run to become market leader of
Smartphone’s, Samsung switched to Android. Not much later, also Ericson choose Android as their default OS.
The usability of modern devices depends largely on applications (Dorokhova, R., et al., 2008). The problem of Symbian
was that they were too late for developers to create applications. At the time that Symbian became an open system,
Android and Iphone already had thousands of applications in their app store, which were reasons for customers to buy
these phones. Another aspect to consider is the approach that Apple, HTC and RIM took with respect to the one taken by
Nokia. Apple for the better part of its existence has been a computer manufacturer. They developed a mobile device with
a top down approach such that the device is a stripped down version of a desktop computer. This approach helped them
address to consumer needs for speed, reliability and processing power. HTC, another device manufacturer started with the
aim of catering to the high-end smartphone market and released its phones on multiple platforms and thereby addressing a
larger but segmented group of consumers. RIM focused on addressing the needs of a corporate and business user. They
integrated their services such that such class of users can easily sync up with work even while on the move. Nokia did not
change its approach to address the changing needs of the smartphone user. It still retained its old approach of offering
devices bundled with a lot of features but without focusing on user segments.
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5. Nokia is collaborating with Micrsoft to launch smartphones with Windows 7 mobile as the OS. Meego is not the preferred
OS anymore since it failed to live up to its billing. The stability and features of the platform has taken up too much time
and resources and they are still under progress.
Why was Nokia a success in the mobile market but failed in the Smartphone market?
Nokia focused on R&D to create affordable phones with a well-designed interface. It chose convergence of mobile
technologies, as opposed to divergence, resulting in highly reliable and technologically superior phones. The development
process time was highly reduced so that it could easily adapt to different markets. The key factor for success was the
ability to adjust to change. This was seen rather less emphasized in the case of new touch-based technologies.
Nokia entered the smartphone market early and gained unprecedented success. Nokia invested heavily on Symbian, the
OS behind its smartphones. However, the very inherent qualities of Symbian that spelled success for Nokia in the early
stages became the cause of its doom. Symbian OS was essentially designed for devices with features such as non-touch
UI, medium resolution screens, limited processor speeds and extended battery life. Mobile hardware in the late 90’s was
still evolving and Symbian suited such class of hardware. However, with the mobile market growing at a tremendous
pace, mobile hardware technology started growing at an equivalent speed. Rapid progresses ensured that by mid of 2000,
a mobile device could easily be compared to a fully functional computer. Newer mobile players created or adopted OS
suitable for such advanced hardware. However, Nokia decided to pursue with its old Symbian OS, which by now looked
ragged and horrendously slow. Although being a firm believer in change, Nokia failed to react to new competitors. The
failure to react to consumer needs and offer seamless web based and other services started to spell doom for Nokia’s profit
margins and its market share.
Thus, though the decisions of management led to a very big success in the 90’s, the same design decisions in the 2000
resulted in loss of market share. Adjustment to change was a key factor when Nokia entered the mobile market. They
focused on R&D to create affordable phones with a well-designed interface. Instead of diversion of technology they
choose to converge in different aspects of the mobile technology that resulted in high reliable phones. The development
process time was not seen kept consistent. Following products came along with faltered time-to-market plans, E.g. N8
was launched a year than it’s planned release. And contributed to loss in smartphone market share.
DISCUSSION
Nokia did balance out technology and design-driven
Reason for success for Nokia was their convergence in innovations with their focus on user-centered design, so
R& D so that technology was made reliable. The user what went wrong? The market-driven company fails
driven design was the key to success. Nokia created when the market fails, and in this case the Smartphone
niche markets and designed on user needs and market made a shift in the mobile market. Nokia, that
requirements. They also had a good sense of marketing once dominated this space, as the introducer did not
and branding. But this strategy is not the key to all- adapt to the dynamic market, instead believed that the
round success as we have seen in last years. They relied market would adapt to it. This was surely proved
heavily on Symbian that worked well on then available wrong, as the competitors like Samsung and Apple
low hardware competencies, but it failed to deliver user came in to grab this opportunity from Nokia’ s hands.
and designer aspired interactions with even better
integrated processors. The strategic product decisions that made Nokia a
global leader in mobile phones were based firmly on
The key driver of Nokia’s success was their focus and market and user trends. However, when it reached its
exploring power in their own technology. Where others pinnacle,
focused on other technologies, Nokia specialized on Nokia believed in its own offered OS so much that it
their technology that resulted in a reliable phone and a became blind to user aspirations and ignored other
strong brand. But this tenacious way of approach approaches taken by new entrants in the market for
became dangerous when they entered the Smartphone quite a long time. While these new players built upon
market. The stood focused on their own technology,
which had a backlog on the Iphone and Android their strategy and garnered market share, Nokia with its
systems. The gap was never caught up, but still they rigid design strategy kept losing till it realized that the
kept specializing in their Symbian OS. Therefore the market had radically changed and found it lagging way
driver of success here became the driver for failure. behind the new players.
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6. CONCLUSION portfolio. Can it be argued upon as an extension of the
Management of Design plays an integral role in shaping definition of Scandinavian design; where in user
up an organization’s philosophy and thereby steering it experience contributes to the overall product?
towards its success or failure. Inculcating company
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