Nokia's 137-year history epitomizes Finland's modern history, from socialism to capitalism, from exporting timber to exporting cell phones. The century-old company's legendary transformation has left even the equally old Kiwi Electric (which started as a light bulb and now makes airplane engines) in the dust.
Finns of all generations can relate to Nokia: those over 60 think of it as a company that sells lumber and cables; those over 40 think of it as a company that sells rain boots and toilet paper, and those over 20 think of it as a company that sells cell phones. Yes, these are all Nokia, or were Nokia, and together the five letters of Nokia are not only a household name in Finland, but a familiar trademark around the world. "When Nokia did its overseas marketing in the early 1990s, many people thought it was a Japanese company," laughs Tuula Putkinen, PR manager at Nokia's headquarters. Today, Nokia's popularity has far surpassed that of any Japanese company. In a survey of the world's "Top 100 Brands," released this year by Interbrand, a leading U.S. market research firm, Nokia (No. 6) was the only non-U.S. company (Mercedes-Benz was the other) and the only non-U.S. company to make it into the top 10 for two years in a row, with a brand value of up to $30 billion, making it more recognizable than McDonald's, Toyota, Citibank and Sunnyside.
Everyone can't get enough of Nokia
Any local in Finland can speak eloquently about his or her relationship with Nokia. He may work for Nokia, or his relatives, classmates or friends work for Nokia, or else he is a die-hard Nokia consumer himself. It's rare for a company that started out selling lumber in 1865 to achieve such a feat, and Finland has almost thrown its whole country at the task of getting this company onto the international stage.
Nokia has lived up to its name. For many years has been Finland's number one enterprise, Nokia a company's export value, accounting for 25% of Finland's exports, and in the Helsinki Stock Exchange, Nokia a company's market value, equal to the sum of all other listed companies. These data show one thing: Nokia is Finland.
In 1967, Nokia Timber, Finnish Rubber and Finnish Cable merged to give Nokia a new look and a foundation for developing its electronics industry, while Jorma Ollila, who took over as chief executive in 1992, is the soul who led this century-old company from Finland to the world, dominating the wireless communications market.
This business leader, who is considered a favorite to become Finland's future president, began his tenure with an old company that was riddled with holes and nearly bankrupt. 1992 was the year the former Soviet Union collapsed, when Finland lost its biggest market and the economy stalled, and Nokia, which owns a wide range of businesses such as wires and cables, toilet paper, rubber shoes, televisions, personal computers, cell phones and communications equipment, was hit even harder. At one point, the company was considering a sale because of financial difficulties, and possible buyers included Swedish rival Ericsson, which was not interested.
Making it easy to carry a cell phone in your pocket
At the time, except for cell phones and telecom equipment, which were profitable, Nokia's other businesses were either big losers or just small gainers. O'Leary's task was to play executioner and cut down businesses that shouldn't have existed, and he did a good job of it, just as Jack Welch did when he took over as Kiwi's chief executive officer for the first four years of the company's existence, in 1980.
"I'm not going to be able to do that.
"In the 1980s and early 1990s, Nokia was in a bad way, with its personal computers losing a lot of money (they were knocked out by Taiwan, Japan and South Korea in Asia), and its other businesses were not doing so well, and the whole company didn't feel like it had a future," remembers Hannu H. Kari, director of the Communications Software and Multimedia Laboratory at the Helsinki University of Technology, who was working in the personal computer division of Nokia at that time. Kari recalled that he was working in Nokia's personal computer division at the time. Kari analyzes that focusing on wireless communications and being the first to launch the first GSM system in 1992 was the key to Nokia's comeback.
This is exactly what happened in Finland. After losing the Soviet Union as its largest market (accounting for 13 percent of Finland's exports), Finland was destined to become a member of Western capitalism, undergoing a more rigorous test of the market economy, with a readjustment of resource allocation and industrial focus.
Orila's greatest contribution to Nokia was twofold. First, he recognized that branding is the most important element in communicating to consumers, and that Nokia must be led by a strong brand if it is to move from Finland to the international arena. Since 1992, Nokia has invested hundreds of millions of dollars each year in marketing and advertising, and continues to do so. Secondly, he re-tooled the cell phone business from a functional appeal to a stylistic one, implying that the phone was moving from heavy and bulky to light and stylish, "something you could easily put in your pocket."
In 1997, Nokia launched a series of "Connecting People" (technology always comes from human nature) advertisements in an intensive global rollout, with images of consumers of different ages happily talking about their cell phones, breaking away from the previous cell phone's emphasis on functionality, and impressing consumers around the world: a cell phone is no longer just a tool for your father to use, but something that everyone should have. In the next year, Nokia overtook Motorola to become the market leader in cell phones, and this year its share climbed to 38 percent.
"When Nokia first launched its red phone, everyone laughed, but now everyone is learning," observes Kali. "Nokia now sells not just its technology, but its image, and buying a Nokia cell phone is like buying an IBM PC back in the day. tough. A student leader in college who organized friendship missions to Moscow, O'Leary had a vision of socialism and was one of the radical dissidents in the hippie 1970s.
There are still shades of socialism
Wen Zhaodong, a professor at the National Chengchi University's Institute of Science and Technology who has visited Nokia's headquarters, observed that Finns in their 40s and 50s, like Oulila's generation, grew up experiencing very big changes in society, wandering between socialism and capitalism, and having diverse international experience at a young age, with outstanding insights and resilience, have transformed their companies into top-tier corporations. He has no problem transforming the company into a top-tier enterprise.
Orilla was able to lead the army in the battle of capitalism, but in retrospect, there is still a lot of socialism at Nokia. Class is not evident within Nokia, where competence is not judged by job title but by recognition from colleagues, and 'it's not as clear who the immediate supervisor is,' says Puchina.
At Nokia, it's common for a high-ranking executive to be moved to take on a lower-ranking job, not as an intentional demotion, but rather to leverage his strengths and knowledge for the new job. As a result, job rotation is commonplace at Nokia, often changing positions over a two-year period, and "it's hard to say definitively what your job is, it's often changing, and business cards often have to be reprinted." Kalli adds, "Take responsibility and the job is in your hands, that's Finnish."
The companies that are most rewarding to work for
The job security is even more pronounced. Since last year, the great global telecoms downturn has seen a combined 500,000 layoffs in the US alone, and corporate announcements of tens of thousands of layoffs are not news. Nokia has also been affected, with its share price falling by half and revenue declining again this year, but it is still hanging on by the skin of its teeth, laying off only 1,000 people, the lowest figure in the industry.
In addition, Nokia's headquarters also provides three warmth, gym and medical consulting services, if employees need, the company also help to book appointments to see the doctor, the cost paid by the company. All these thoughtful measures have made Nokia one of the "best companies to work for" in this year's Fortune Star magazine.
Nokia faces a myriad of challenges, including slowing growth in the cell phone market, software giant Microsoft's forced involvement in developing platform software for cell phones, and Samsung's excellent performance in the Asian market ......, which is a strong threat to Finland's leading position in the mobile communications community, as is the case in Japan The threat is strong from Japan and South Korea. Since the second half of last year, Nokia in the tri-band, GPRS and color screen, such as a variety of new cell phone time to market, are lagging behind rivals, a hard battle to defend the throne, is starting to launch from Finland.
Last summer, O'Leary and five first-line supervisors began intensive consultations to discuss the reconstruction of the 28 billion U.S. dollar turnover of Nokia, and in the next strategic planning, Nokia cell phone division split into nine business groups, from high-end to entry models, from GSM to CDMA specifications, from accessories to provide content services, etc., from May 1 this year, the formal declaration of war on all cell phones to all the same industry, the full scale. The next 10 years of Nokia's business is booked.
Eurila plus Nokia plus Finland, which originally represented leftists plus a century-old store plus a small polar country, is an abrupt combination, but now it has become an excellent CEO plus a world brand plus the top of the country's competitiveness, which has turned into a dream combination. This bizarre result is an all-too-familiar scenario for Finns, who invented Old Man Christmas and are accustomed to receiving mysterious gifts: as long as you have a dream, it will come true, even after 137 years.