Organisational and Social Environment: Group Assignment1

Nokia is the world’s number one mobile phone company and a successor in the global phone
Industry. Being an Industry leader on a Global level, Nokia is fully engaged into excelling environmental
performance and assume Cooperate responsibility in all their operations. It therefore maintains its
position by living up to its slogan, “Connecting People”, by abiding to three main objectives; Speed of
anticipation and fulfilling evolving customer and market needs, strong customer recognition and
upholding a solid and positive relationship with its stakeholders. However, as any other organisation,
Nokia faces many challenges which forces flexibility and ease of transformation on their way of
executing operations. How then, does Nokia operate in accordance to the different aspects as far as
business is concerned?
1. BUSINESS ORGANISATION AND ENVIRONMENT

This is the first aspect in consideration and Nokia must relate the different Environment with their
effects to the Organisation respectively. Environment are divided into two main categories,
Controllable and the Non-controllable Environment, and they work in a butterfly effect system
which means alteration of any environment can affect the other and so on.

EXHIBIT 1.1: Overview of Environment and their relation to Nokia

CONTROLLABLE NON-CONTRALLABLE
ENVIRONMENT ENVIRONMENT

1. LABOUR 1. POLITICAL/LEGAL

2. RAW MATERIAL 2. ECONOMY

3. EQUIPTMENT 3. SOCIO-CULTURE

4. TECHNOLOGY CHANGE

5. COMPETITORS

6. GEOGRAPHICAL
FEATURES

7. STAKEHOLDERS:

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 Organisational and Social Environment: Group Assignment2

CONTRALLABLE ENVIRONMENT
This Environment focuses on the attributes that add up to structure of the organisation, the reason for
its existence. They can be controlled in the sense that the organisation dictates the quantity and how much
to be used depending on their available resources and therefore differ from different organisations. Refer
to Exhibit 1.1; the five attributes as you can see are the major make-up of the organisation and without
them, it is dormant to all its operations.
♦ Labour points out the human resources, the actual workers who provide physical or intellectual
contribution to the everyday activities within the organisation.
♦ Raw Material is the physical bits and pieces that are provided by suppliers to manufacture the
company’s end products.
♦ Equipment refers to the machinery or devices that play a role into converting the raw materials to
finished end products.
♦ Capital is the cash flow or the monetary aid the organisation needs to acquire and achieve its
goals, it is the most important because it keeps the other attributes active and functional.
♦ Last but not least, the Entrepreneur who are directly involved in the organisations’ operations.
These are Individuals or Groups that take into risk and invest so as to see the Company achieving
the posted goals.
Adding on to the listed, each attribute is vital for the company existence but they must be balanced and
considered equally in order to prevail in the market competition. Nokia recognizes this and take hide to
see each attribute contributes accordingly.

NON- CONTRALLABLE ENVIRONMENT

This environment sheds light on indirect attributes that affect the organisations’ operation. They cannot
be controlled in the sense that the organisation is unable to change or alter them in any way but on the
flipside, they can alter the organisations’ intermediate processes. Refer to Exhibit 1.1, each attribute in
this environment plays a role into shaping the way of how the organisation must carry out its operation
and they differ in their magnitude of effect, thus cannot be considered equally by the organisation.
♦ Political/Legal environment are usually considered as one because they are enforced by the
nation’s government. It is vital for Nokia’s operation because different nations with their
respective government have different Political/Legal platforms respectively; Nokia operating on a

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 Organisational and Social Environment: Group Assignment3

global level must abide to ground rules and regulation in different markets of host countries
around the world. To its success, Nokia surveys its scope of limits in order to isolate prohibited
actions, regulations and aid from the government so as to withstand the international trade.
Quotas (limit to goods imported), embargoes (restrictions), tariff and tax charges, subsidies and
patents over certain technology or equipment are decided by the government so Nokia works
hand-to-hand with authorities to gain maximum advantage to the Nation’s target market. Laws of
copyright and abuse of phone usage keeps Nokia ahead, it limits any space of intrusion or misuse
of their products.

♦ Economy in tells the production and consumption of goods and services. As far as Nokia is
concerned, the economic system is critical as it can control what the organisation is to produce,
how it should produce and the category of recipient who should use their end products. On one
hand, aspects of international trade is important for Nokia being the global supplier of mobile
phones and on the other hand, the knowledge concerning the nation’s economic status (Type of
economic system practiced, Inflation rate, level of employment and exchange rate) is equally as
important to realize future plans for personal and financial safety together with enhancing
entrepreneurship.

♦ Socio-culture focuses on how Nokia blends in with components in a society; that is culture, social
class, lifestyle and demographic and psychological factors making up the society. Nokia operates
in a diverse number of culture and all levels of social class simply because different models are
frequently released to satisfy all individuals despite their difference in race, nationality, religion,
income level or beliefs among each other. Mobile phones can easily adapt to any culture and can
be used to support different aspects and existing patterns of Individual’s lifestyle or behavior.

♦ Technology change defines how fast technology advances. Being the predominate medium by
which we get things done; technology as a process, interms of mobile phones defines the way we
make contact. Not only does it helps shape culture but also changes other aspects within and/or
outside the organisation for example the need to upgrade Equipments to enbetter the
manufacturing of the end products. The success of Nokia is based on constant innovation on
human technology. By enhancing communication and exploring new ways to exchange
information, connecting people, nokia allow users to get more out of life.

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 Organisational and Social Environment: Group Assignment4

♦ Geographical features explore the twists and turns of Mother Nature. Note on weather, climate,
landscape, scope of natural disasters and other physical features of a nation plays a role for any
organisation.

This environment can affect where to settle your business and Nokia research center must also be
innovative in their product design; adding additional feature such as hydrophobic material, high
melting point plastics to prevail adverse conditions of a nation.

♦ Competitors are essential in a business environment as it promotes delivery of quality goods and
services to the users. Threat of Entry from other new coming organisation, threat of substitute
products, bargaining power of suppliers and buyers respectively and Intensity of rivalry within
the industry are crucial notes that Nokia must be aware of. Adding on to that, Nokia manages to
stay ahead of its competitors by investing much on Research and Development (Nokia Research
Center) and upholds customer recognition, therefore manages to provide the best and maintain a
trusted Brand name.

♦ Stakeholders are groups of individuals or groups that take stake to the organisation and/or are
affected directly or indirectly by its actions. Entrepreneurs and the Government are also known as
stakeholders in the business world.

- Employees make up the Labour (Human Resource) but they are also stakeholders in the sense
that the organisation’s actions and/or decisions can affect them and vice versa. Tasks and
duties require different skills from employees so Nokia approves continuous learning from
their employees to harvest the best result from them.
- Community as a whole is everyone in one place. It covers a bigger population and includes
people and what affects them. Among the cooperate responsibilities Nokia possesses is to
connect with diverse communities they affect so as to channel the impact into a positive
societal contribution. The current strategy at play is on two major areas; using mobile
communications to stimulate development and supporting young people thus managing to
bridge the gaps of communication between communities. Nokia host a TV show in Malaysian
most popular TV provider (Astro) called ‘Nokia Football Crazy’ and therefore staying close
to its community by supporting the football spirit among the young people in Malaysia.

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 Organisational and Social Environment: Group Assignment5

- Suppliers support the provision of raw materials, they add a great deal of effect onto the
organisation and Nokia manages to control their bargaining power and maintain a mutual
relationship. They spend years working with them and provide a good opportunity for them to
improve their inputs and their environment performance. Along with that, Nokia assigns a
global supplier requirement that includes ethical considerations that applies to both, direct
and indirect Suppliers.
- As mentioned earlier, strong customer recognition is one of Nokia’s objectives to fulfill.
Customers determine the success of any organisation, they have a free will on what to buy so
Company’s need to seek and provide them with accessible products to meet their needs and
trade with them responsibly. Product design focuses on the customer and their requirements
thus summing up the slogan, ‘Human Technology’.

All Environments are essential in a business world but for an organisation like Nokia,
Technology change is the most important for them to be careful with. Technology changes at a
fast pace and its change will be very dramatic in the future. It is very important for Nokia to
evolve their hit products.

2. CHANGING NATURE OF ORGANISATION

Nokia is a public limited organisation that is privately owned by group of Individuals. Such
organisations consist of seven shareholders but of a large number of investors. They can have two
directors who can retire at age seventy. Nokia practices a free trade shares with investors who can
contribute capital into the organisation so there is easy transfer of shares but too many
stakeholders may lead to weak control of the business.
Nokia system of operation is open in the sense that it interacts with the environment
accordingly, keeps a close relationship with its employees and maintains motivation and
satisfaction to increase their production.
On a further note, Nokia’s reason for existence is based on the need of faster and improved
communication among people around the world. Communication in turn brought up globalization
and finally development; but business environments changes from time to time and organisations
need to foretell future plans and become flexible to resulting changes. Employees can bring about
change due to their behavior or roles and so can Equipment (Technology) but Nokia is suited in
this sector because it has invested much on Research and Development to neutralize the pressures
of change along with time. Adapting to change implies stability on Organisations’ operations.

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 Organisational and Social Environment: Group Assignment6

So what is Changing nature of the organisation? Basically, how the organisation changes
and how fast does it changes due to the changes in the business environment discussed
previously; therefore all components of an organisation are such that they work together to
control the changing business environments.

3. INDIVIDUAL AT WORK
This last aspect is about Individuals (Employees) and their relation to their work. Being the labour
that works to the success of the organisation, the Head of organisation must keep in mind their
significance.
As far as Nokia is concerned, the physical character is not much of criteria to be strict about;
despite the gender, age, body size and their race as long as the employees perform their jobs well. As
a matter of fact, Nokia branch offices set up events to embrace the celebrations of different cultures
from respective nations just to make them feel at home. However, Nokia takes note on Employee’s
ability and personality. Different tasks and department require special abilities that are not equal thus
not every employee can possess. For example the R&D department will require employees who are
creative and innovative; likewise, the Logistic department will require ones who are good at
computing and analyzing vast figures.

Employee’s personality also differ from one to another, while others are calm and self controlled,
some may be temperate, emotional or self centered. Working together is a challenge that some may
find it hard to deal with and in turn affect their work. Nokia can find ways to motivate their
employees based on their abilities and personality and these are features they possess and cannot be
overlooked when being recruited to work in the organisation.

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