Most of us probably grew up with Nokia.
The Finnish cutting-edge mobile phone manufacturer that was first to market. And that eventually dominated the market globally.
I remember staying at an upscale Helsinki Hotel with a person from Nokia and they paid the bill with their business card. In other words, the Hotel would simply invoice Nokia, no questions asked.
It was a tech giant.
Like Microsoft or Apple.
It was the brand of reliability.
And it's no more.
Bought by Microsoft who announced last week, they'd be dropping the 'Nokia' brand on devices.
And what happened?
Well we all have Samsung or Iphone devices now.
So the reason for that was that Samsung and Apple built better phones and Nokia customers switched - so there was no real brand loyalty to Nokia. It was just a phone (compared to say Apple, who's customers are product devotees).
But the real reason was innovation.
Or lack of it.
You can even be the 80% market dominant player and in a few short years be gone. They simply didn't innovate as quickly as they could and sat a bit on their laurels.
Stand still and you're dead.
Remember Nokia.
