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Nokia innovates on using mobile phones to mobilize field sales force

Nokia Greater China unleashes an innovative sales mobilization platform managed by Hello Technology

The result?

A 69 per cent year on year increase in sales from 2004 Q1 to 2005 Q1

It’s who has more information in China’s fast moving cutthroat mobile phone industry that wins.

With more than 330 million mobile phone users and a penetration of only 23%, China is the largest and fastest growing mobile phone market in the world. All handset manufacturers – from the Korean Samsung to the Chinese Ningbo Bird – are aiming for a piece of the lucrative Chinese pie.

Just two years ago, mobile giants like Nokia and Motorola lost ground to Chinese manufacturers, who gained traction in their market with their attractive range of lower end mobile phones.

Nokia had to do something to regain market share.

Besides introducing new handsets catered to the Chinese market, they also needed to get market information in real-time to react quickly in the fluid competitive environment.

However, gathering information from the distributors in China was a problem, as they were inefficient and frustratingly slow and unavailable. This is partly due to the maturity of the distributors and the competitive nature of the market having so many different brands and models available to distributors.

China’s geographic spread – composing more than 600 plus cities spread in more than 30 plus provinces, municipalities and regions – also posed a significant problem as the distributors varied from region to region.

Besides, Nokia’s internal thousands of sales people were unevenly trained especially in China. Some sales people in had a hard time following processes given their lack of training – many were part-time salesmen who sold other products. Mobilizing them to adapt to the quick changing market was thus difficult because of the lack of an automated way to enforce the process.

Hello Technology understands real-time enterprise communications & processes

Because Hello Technology understands real-time enterprise communications and processes, and because we really understand the China context, we were able to help map Nokia’s business needs to its mobile IT functions quickly and efficiently.

Additionally, because of our strong understanding of process-oriented change – a necessity for scalable growth – we were also roped in to design the system infrastructure, implement QA testing and manage third party vendors involved in the implementation.

 

Mobilizing Sales Force

With all these problems, Nokia needed a new innovative way of solving them.

A new distribution business model was established. Products can thus be distributed efficiently and effectively to the consumers via the retail outlets where retail outlets. Management of retail outlets will be supported by the deployment of thousands of mobile sales force.

With Hello Technology’s experience in managing and developing field force mobilization solution, Nokia has developed and implemented a highly sophisticated solution such that management of these sales force deployed over hundred of cities can be automated. As a result, Nokia can mobilize their sales force more effectively and wean away from the inefficient distribution channels in China to market their products.

Process controls also ensure that all salespeople respond promptly to the sales management processes. Why get the salespeople to use laptops to type a weekly report – when not all the sales people have one – when a mobile phone with application can suffice with more immediate information?

This fast information is invaluable in a fast-paced competitive market, where first-hand knowledge means getting the drop on your competitor. Mobile technology is also a stable, relatively inexpensive technology in Greater China that Nokia – being in the communications space – was entirely comfortable with.

The results – firmly established as number 1 in China

The results speak plainly for themselves. According to Nokia’s Q1 2005 financial results, there was a 69 per cent year on year change in growth of mobile handsets shipped from 2004 Q1 to 2005 Q1 in China alone.

According to a June 1st 2005 report on the Wall Street Journal, companies like Nokia have not only increased their market share this year, but have also improved their distribution networks in more-remote Chinese provinces, where mobile phone use is growing fast.

This is due to the visionary foresight Nokia has in using their own technology – mobile phones – to reach out to their sales force and mass market.

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