It was in the year 1995, when Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia had entered the Indian market and within no time, it found itself in a pioneering role to shape the growth of the Indian cellular industry when there was hardly any serious competition. The one who was venturesome enough to grasp the pulse of the Indian market scored. Nokia did, and scored like how. Country focussed product & marketing strategies took Nokia to a stage where it dominated the Indian market with ridiculous ease with market shares hovering around the 80% mark.

However, in India as it is with other parts of the world, the company has made some serious strategic blunders and that have led to serious corrections in its growth story. Nokia’s global revenues have witnessed southward movement for the second consecutive quarter in 2011. With net sales falling by 7% to €9.3 billion, the company has registered a loss of €368 million during the quarter, compared to €227 million in profits during same period in 2010. Also, the current losses are despite a royalty payment of €430 million received as the result of a patent dispute with Apple that went in Nokia’s favour. Nokia’s shares have received a royal hammering on NYSE. The share was trading at $6.44 (mcap of $23.89 billion) on August 30, a steep fall of 30.3% compared to its price one year ago.

With a current market share revolving around 22% in handsets (compared to 39.6% in 2008, source: IDC), it has gradually levelled up with the figure it registered in 2002. The world cellphone market grew by 11.3% yoy for the 2nd quarter of 2011 (IDC), facilitated greatly by Apple’s whopping 142.1% growth & ZTE’s 36% growth for the same period. Nokia’s shipments, in turn, have fallen by 20.3% to 88.5 million units. While speaking to B&E from Hong Kong, Gavin Byrne, IT Analyst, Informa Telecoms & Media says, “Nokia’s weaknesses in recent years has been innovation and then the execution of that innovation, i.e., bringing it to market in appealing consumer oriented products.” He laments how the company had just one great trick in the smartphone market – the N95 in 2007 – and the iPhone stole its thunder in no time.

On one hand, the company’s overconfidence in its hardware dominance led it to miss the competitive waves that just about swept it away in the smartphone and feature phone segments. On the other hand, its illogical reliance on its own operating software (OS) Symbian has led to problems of a different kind. Symbian was once considered to be a jewel in the company’s crown, which was originally designed by Symbian Ltd. With inputs from handset makers including Nokia, Sony Ericsson and NTT Docomo (the latter two dumped it later), it was to be used as a common platform. But Nokia’s overdependence on the software proved suicidal. Rather than developing a new operating software according to the dynamic market, Nokia bought over Symbian Ltd. in 2008 for $410 million to develop a better & update version of the OS. It remained on top with 39.3% market share in 2009 against competitors like Apple and RIM, which undoubtedly possessed the so-called next generation phones like Blackberry and iPhone. But it was largely due to the contractual agreements that Apple & iPhone had with telecom operators like AT&T in US and Airtel & Vodafone in India. Thus they were not able to pose a significant challenge and Nokia was more interested in milking its investments rather than making critical new ones.

Read more….

A detailed job description and requirements can be found below for the positions available:

Business Analyst JHB

Business Analyst KZN

TLC_IT Business Analyst PMB

TLC_Lean Consultant KZN

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt / Project Manager JHB

Ø  They will work with the Business to define requirements and core system capabilities that will strategically drive efficiencies in the business taking into account the entire picture as well as the details.

Ø  They will gain  knowledge of the application systems in their area of responsibility and will identify, evaluate and define impacts of changes, provide alternatives both to the application changing and all upstream and downstream systems, or identify if a change is a manual process taking into account the entire picture as well as the details.

Ø  Generally will be assigned to Enterprise, cross-functional and cross-departmental projects with high complexity and cross-system impacts.

Ø  They will have demonstrated working knowledge to conceptualize, document and communicate innovative solutions to meet or exceed business objectives and can reconcile short-term solutions with long-term objectives and infrastructure strengths.

Ø  They will need to be experienced in planning, facilitating, and participating in working sessions with cross-functional resources and can mentor and assist others in same.

Ø  They will have demonstrated working knowledge of various business process and system modeling tools including: Data Flow Diagrams, Process Models, ER diagrams, Dimensional Data Models, Context Models, Event Modeling, State Modeling, Process decomposition, and Use Case Scenarios and  thorough working knowledge of the system development life cycle and can train others on SDLC concepts

Ø  Will need to have the ability to assess the impact of new requirements on an existing · suite of complex applications

Qualifications

Ø  Strong technical writing skills producing clear and unambiguous deliverables.

Ø  Need 8-10 years experience creating Requirement, Functional Specification, & Test Requirement documents required

Ø  Need 8-10 years experience with supporting both purchased and in-house developed required.

Ø  Need 8-10 years experience in software development, software design or business process design (example: process modeling, use case analysis, etc) and implementation.

Ø  8-10 years experience with a formal SDLC

Ø  8-10 years experience in telecommunications industry preferred

Ø  Preferably has both Prepaid and Postpaid billing background

Ø  Years of experience as a true systems analyst in telecom industry

Ø  Has Java skills on latest Java versions (preferably did some development, minimal requirement is knows how to read Java code)

Ø  Has Amdocs Ensemble experience

Ø  Has written FSDs (functional specs doc), CRs, API documents

Ø  Local in WA

Ø  Available in the next 2-3 weeks

Please send your profile to  sahoo@internationalrecruiter.org

Leonora Nemet, 20, is taking a break from nursing school at Laurentian University to look after her younger siblings — Teodora, 18 and Thomas, 16 — in Ottawa following their mother’s horrific killing.

“She wants the best for them,” said Sharon Flinn, Nemet’s manager at Lockerby Taxi in Sudbury.

“She’s a very mature person for her age.”

Tinde “Tina” Nemet, 46, was stabbed to death in her Fisher Ave. home March 11.

Her estranged husband, Mihalj “Mike” Nemet, 56, has been charged with first-degree murder.

The children have essentially been orphaned and Leonora is packing up the family home and talking to the school board about the status of her brother’s grade 11 academic credits.

A funeral was held last Friday in Centretown for the loving mother of three.

“She had a good heart,” said friend Joanne Lee.

“She was always willing to help people out with anything.”

The family is originally from Zrenjanin, Serbia.

About 10 years ago they settled in Sudbury where Tina worked at the local tax centre and volunteered as a swimming official.

The Nemets moved to Ottawa roughly two years ago and rented a rowhouse in Carleton Heights.

Tina Nemet was an IT analyst at the Canada Revenue Agency.

CRA spokesman Philippe Brideau refused to associate internal fundraising efforts for the Nemet family with the company but donations have been collected.

“There’s ongoing efforts,” said Terrie Osborne.

Back in Sudbury, Leonora is so well-liked at the taxi company where she’s worked for the last four years as a dispatcher, cabbies have been pooling their tips to help support her.

So far, almost $4,000 has been raised.

But more is needed.

“Leonora wants them to stay together as a family,” said Flinn.

Donations for the Nemet kids can be made at any TD Canada Trust branch using this information: Transit # 3736; Institution # 004; Account # 6340129.

Mihalj Nemet’s next court appearance is April 5 by video.

kelly.roche@sunmedia.ca

http://www.ottawasun.com/news/ottawa/2011/03/30/17812516.html

Ottawa’s second homicide victim of 2011 is being remembered as a dedicated mom to her three kids and who loved volunteering at the local swimming pool.

“Tina is a terrific lady. She put her heart into her kids’ activities,” said Wayne Toner, president of the Sudbury Laurentian Swim Club where the woman donated her time before moving to Ottawa a couple of years ago.

Tinde “Tina” Nemet was stabbed to death in her 1564 Fisher Ave. home Friday morning.

Her 56-year-old husband, Mihalj “Mike” Nemet, has been charged with first-degree murder in her death.

He made a brief court appearance Saturday and was remanded into custody.

He will appear in court again on March 21.

Tina, who worked at Canada Revenue Agency as an IT analyst, was an integral part of the club, Toner said, where she volunteered as a swimming official.

“We saw Tina everyday. At swim meets, she was always the first one there. She attended every function,” he said.

All three kids — Leonora, 19, Teodora, 18 and Thomas, 16 — swam there until the family moved.

Meantime, co-workers of Teodora and Thomas are rallying to help support them through their loss. The siblings work at the South Keys Loblaws, Teodora in the bakery and Thomas at the hot food counter.

“She was in today, not working. We were just basically trying to help her get through this,” said duty manager Peggy Dubois. “She’s not good. It’s going to be a long struggle for both her and her brother.”

Dubois said staff has put together a year’s supply of gifts to provide the pair with free groceries and store manager Emmanuel Smiley plans to set up a trust fund for them.

“It’s a shock. You hear about this all the time, but when it hits so close to home, we’re just like a great big family right now,” she said. “It’s really hard. A lot of us can’t even focus on our jobs.”

In court Saturday Mihalj Nemet, who stands about 5-feet-6, and sports a shaved head appeared in court wearing a black dress shirt and black dress pants.

His face had no expression and he did not speak.

Saturday afternoon, a white bowl with bright pink flowers sat on the front step of the family home on Fisher.

The front window of the rowhouse still has three vases with orange and yellow flowers.

Police tape cordoned off the backyard and the home’s front entrance.

Neighbours told the Sun Friday they woke up to horrific screams early that morning.

“I’ve never heard screaming like that in my life and I hope to never hear it again,” Victor Stanley said.

“This was just a blood-curdling scream.”

kelly.roche@sunmedia.ca

http://www.ottawasun.com/news/ottawa/2011/03/12/17591821.html

Tip o’ the hat to Gerry for the tip.

The difficulty of purchasing from a smaller firm is discovering them in the first place. Forrester and Gartner (as well as the vendor-centric IDC) have tremendous mindshare from tens of thousands press quotes and growing sales forces that drive their brand equity. Very few firms outside of the Big 3 invest in marketing and sales that would give them the market visibility to become a regular addition to buyer short lists.

The next issue is finding alternative firms that can deliver services that meet your needs. Many analyst firms specialize in advising the vendor community, so they are not appropriate for enterprise IT managers. Other firms have very specific topic or industry specialization (e.g., Redmonk on Open Source issues). So finding the right firms out of the hundreds of specialized firms can be a daunting task.

Some of the more interesting firms for both enterprise IT buyers and vendor market researchers are ones who have worked to broaden the topics covered so they would be more interesting to a larger pool of buyers, e.g., AMR Research, Burton Group, and Ovum. Unfortunately, these firms have not made parallel investments in marketing so many potential buyers think of these firms – if they think of them at all – based on what they were known for a couple of years ago (e.g., AMR=manufacturing software and supply chain; Burton=security and network directories, Ovum=EMEA telecommunications).

 SageCircle Technique:

• Use Google to search for analysts by press quote as a means of building the initial list of potential analyst firms to check
• Consider using to Tekrati‘s firms directory (free) and analyst profiles database (less than $400) to search for firms and analysts that cover relevant topics
• Vendor market researchers should check with the analyst relations (AR) team to see if AR uses ARchitect (by ARInsights) or AR Intranet (by Lighthouse) because each has a database of analysts and coverages
• Inquire with peers in other companies to see about which firms they use

Bottom Line: If your company is spending hundreds of thousands dollars on analyst services then it will be worth the effort to search out alternative suppliers of analyst advice and research. As is always the case, good basic purchasing procedures must be used to ensure that these analyst firms meet basic financial viability and quality requirements.

Question: Analyst Services Buyers – Do you focus most of your analyst spend with Forrester and Gartner? If so, why? What are the barriers to broadening your portfolio of analyst firms from whom you will purchase services?

This post is one in a series on the SageCircle blog about how buyers of analysts service, whether enterprise IT or tech vendors, can ensure they are might the right purchasing decisions. For those analyst clients needing much more depth than what is in this blog series, please check out the SageCircle AR Wiki where you can find a lengthy thread of articles that provide more depth and breadth on this critical topic including checklists and tools.

1. Using five rights to avoid a wrong when it comes to purchasing Gartner or Forrester services
2. Right reasons – Evaluate why you are purchasing analyst services
3. Right services – Align the services you buy to better match the reason for info or advice
4. Right firms – Search out alternative services providers that better match your reasons
5. Right price – Acquire those services that meet your basics requirements
6. Right usage – Drive usage of the services you buy to ensure maximize business value

SageCircle Technique:  My suggestion to IT managers is that you schedule an inquiry with your key analysts to discuss your current implementations from your key vendors.  You can ask the analysts their perception and provide real-world data on the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the vendors and products you use.

Sample discussion might include:

• What is your perception of this product (vendor) and on what do you base that opinion?
• How do my experiences with these products (vendors) compare to what you are hearing from others?
• What about your colleagues, do they hear the same comments?
• How would you rate the competitors?

Using inquiry to ask analysts about their opinion is commonplace for the firm clients, but offering your opinion with supporting data is something analysts rarely hear.  This can lead to a strong relationship with the analyst that can pay off later when you are looking for purchasing information.

Related Articles:

How to break analysts out of auto-pilot inquiry responses

Best practices for client inquiry execution

Bottom Line: As a client of the analyst firm you have inquiry privileges that can be used to gain opinions even when you are not ready to purchase.  Providing analysts customer data can build the relationship for future inquiry use.

Question: IT Managers – Have you ever called an analyst to provide positive feedback? Analysts – How do you ensure a balance of customer feedback that includes positive commentary?
 
Are you getting the most from your analyst contracts? SageCircle can help. Our strategists can:

• Evaluate the usage of your contracted analyst services and suggest ways to maximize business value from your investment
• Train your colleagues with analysts seats (e.g., Gartner Advisory and Forrester Roleview) through efficient and effective distance learning via webinar or teleconference
• Critique your upcoming analyst contracts to ensure you are getting the right services from the right firms to meet your business needs
• Save you time, money and aggravation

To learn more contact us at info [at] sagecircle dot com or 650-274-8309.

Today SageCircle is launching a new “Page” (see left hand navigation menu) called Vendor Analyst Events. It is a simple listing by month. Please send us the dates and location of your events and we will post them for free. The events we are interested in are major events like summits and conferences (see definition below).

 Why would a vendor share the date of their analyst event? Wouldn’t that just be giving its competitors intelligence that they could use for mischief? The reality is that vendor events do not stay a secret any longer than the first “hold the date” e-mail so there is no real danger of mischief. An example is that analyst firms do their best to avoid obvious overlap. We think the attitude is that people do not want to accidently schedule events too close together because it dilutes the possible attendance.

“analyst summit” / “analyst conference” – an event hosted by a technology vendor with the goal of educating industry analysts on a breadth of topics about the vendor and its market. Analyst summits are characterized as having attendance of dozens to hundreds of analysts from multiple firms with formal “main stage” presentations, breakout sessions, executive 1-on-1 meetings and social gatherings. Analyst summits typically last from one-half day to two days.

SageCircle Technique:

• Leave a comment or send an e-mail to info [at] sagecircle dot com with the dates and location of your event

Bottom Line: The AR community can increase its efficiency through the sharing of schedules about vendor analyst events.