Career Planning

My top three career objectives for the next five years

1. To obtain my BBA degree in Marketing by the end of summer 2013
2. To obtain a job which I would love to do
3. To obtain my MBA degree while working

My strengths and weaknesses

1. My strengths that will help me to obtain my BBA degree

• As a student, I always put my school work as No.1 priority
• I have never skipped a class unless I was terribly sick since I entered the college.

    My weakness that may stand in the way to obtain my BBA degree

• I often feel exhausted or tired when I have to study after work
• I have difficulties to focus on study when I am next to my computer
• I easily get stressed out about school and work  

2. My strengths that will help me to obtain my job which I would love to do

• I have great acting power on doing things that I am interested in
• I have built a strong network around my community, work and school last 7 years living in new york which helped me to get two job offers currently
• I clearly know what makes me happy while working and living

   My weaknesses that may stand in the way to obtain my job which I would love to do

• My problem has been finding a specific occupation that I would love to do.  I am interested in travelling,interacting with people, and various subjects including arts, business ,etc. It can be problematic since it is not very specific.
• As an ESL student, I need to improve my English skills

3. My strengths that will help me to obtain my MBA degree

• I am informative about the process getting into the program. Also, I have many friends who are in the program, who can give me advice.
• Since I am working on my BBA, my course work will be related to the MBA courses which I am familiar with

    My weaknesses that will may stand in the way to obtain my MBA degree

• I need to get a huge amount of a  student loan ( hopefully, my future employer can reimburse part of them )
• I will be exhausted physically while working and studying at the same time

Detailed Action plan

Completing my BBA degree

• Take full-time classes until my last semester
• Obtain an internship during winter that I can get credit
• Work less in order to focus on my school work

Obtaining a job which I would love to do

• Do research about occupations that are related to travelling, people and business
• Expand my network more through friends and events
• Improve my language skills using programs and classes . If possible, learn additional languages to be outstanding
• Keep GPA above 3.0

Obtaining my MBA degree while working

• Study GMAT as I graduate from undergraduate program
• Get to know professors for advice and recommendations
• Find employers who actively encourage their employees to attend MBA programs

Crisis Management

Nokia Oyj was the biggest vendor for mobile phones from the late 1990's, but the corporation from Finland has suffered declining market share as a result of the growing us of smart phones from other vendors. According to Businessweek, They have announced 20,000 job cuts, selling their headquarter building, patents and research facilities in Helsinki to raise money, and their shareprice has plunged about 90 percent since iPhone's debut in 2007.
According to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, " Nokia will spend to break through." They have been restructuring to be profitable again. It is clear to see they are losing sales, and need to produce competitive mobile devices to revive in the market. Since the managerial team of Nokia was not problem seekers when they were dominant in the market, they have missed opportunities to maintain or progress their position in the market. They ignored the rule that speed matters. When they realized the crisis, it was a little too late. Backing off or waiting did not seem helping the crisis. Recently, Nokia finally has launched a new model called "Lumia", as Nokia has had a strategic partnership with Microsoft using Windows phone operating system. Nokia's reconstructing for new products seem to be still slow compared to their competitors.
The CEO states that "Our clear strategy, if you go all the way to the highest level of our strategy, you talk about three pillars. The first is the smartphone strategy: winning with Microsoft around Windows Phone. The second is our mobile phone strategy: connecting the next billion people to the Internet.
And then a third pillar of our strategy is something we call future disruptions, the things we're doing in the labs which define the next steps in terms of devices and experiences that will differentiate. Supporting all of this, the location-based services...The final piece of the strategy, which is really important, and this is something we're doing a lot of work on, is changing the way we operate as a company."
The price for not being a problem seeker seems huge. Nokia has become one of the windows phones which seem to be very similar to one another. It seems that the managerial team of Nokia is trying to walk on a safe road aided by Microsoft. None of the new strategies seem to be challenging or dangerous. It is ironic that Nokia is spending millions of dollars for reconstructing, but it is questionable whether they are putting them in the right places. Nokia maybe dealing with the symtoms not with the problems,also choosing the wrong problems.
Nokia should have been proactive in anticipating threats and opprtunities earlier. If they had gathered information and prepared differentiation and improvement, this crisis could have been prevented. Their relativelt new management does not seem revolutionary neither. It seems to be they are losing their uniqueness by selling their petents and switching their own operating systems to windows. The solution may be the last option they wanted to choose since it is inevitable to survive in the face changing the smart phone market.







Sources :


http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-26/nokia-dividend-elimination-looms-as-cash-dwindles

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nokia-mulls-selling-global-hq-building-in-finland-but-no-plans-to-move/2012/10/03/74558040-0d52-11e2-ba6c-07bd866eb71a_story.html

 http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-57524708-85/nokia-ceo-stephen-elop-well-spend-to-break-through-q-a/#ixzz28aGM67Ba

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577465771376539532.html