十多年前，诺基亚仍是北极圈边缘一个小小国家里一个默默无闻的公司。大家对其所知甚少，事实上，直到不久前大多数人都还认为它是日本公司。

今天，世界上销售的手机中,有十分之三都由这家总部位于芬兰的公司制造,令人叹服地战胜了电子巨头摩托罗拉和爱立信。诺基亚品牌在2005年被国际品牌研究机构Interband评为第六大最具价值的公司，恰列于微软和可口可乐之后。诺基亚是芬兰最大的出口商，它曾在芬兰首都赫尔辛基周围掀起了一阵科技繁荣浪潮，其股票在芬兰成就了成千上万的百万富翁。如今在芬兰，移动电话非常司空见惯（每1000人中有700人拥有手机），年轻人甚至把手机称作kännykkä或känny ，意思是“手的延长部分 ”。大胆的领导风格，富有激励性的聘用机制，良好的时机，以及国家性格因素都对诺基亚的成功起到了重要作用。

诺基亚公司的历史可以追溯到1865年，当时该公司在芬兰南部的诺基亚镇开办了一家木材工厂。后来公司业务慢慢地扩大到经营橡胶，制作皮靴，电缆和电话线生意。20世纪60年代初期，凭借其在电信行业的业务关系，它开始涉足早期的无线电话领域。

人烟稀少的斯堪的纳维亚半岛是一块天然的市场，1981年该地区建立起移动电话基本网络，诺基亚公司此时建立起一家小型工厂，供应早期的“手机”，如10公斤重的汽车电话。如果要说这段经历为诺基亚的未来成功打下了基础，那还得承认这基础还并不明显。后来，诺基亚涉足电视和电脑业务，均未获成功。到1980年代中期，该公司成为了爱尔兰地区主要的卫生纸供应商，以及世界上唯一家冬用自行车轮胎生产商。这便是当时诺基亚的主要成就。1987年，诺基亚羽翼未丰的手机业务开始出现亏损。在当时的首席执行官卡里指导下，诺基亚公司开始在日本寻找合作伙伴，以帮助它建立一个在消费群体中有影响力的电子品牌，但1988年，当谈判正在进行之时，卡里却因抑郁症自杀。

1991年，芬兰的主要贸易伙伴前苏联共和国坍塌，诺基亚的传统业务也不得不进入了挣扎阶段。在股东的抱怨下，诺基亚公司的管理层开始考虑出售手机业务，降低成本。不过，他们还是先向年轻的首席执行官约玛奥利拉寻求建议，看看手机部门是否可以转亏为赢。奥利拉于1985年加入公司，其发展前景一直被人看好。他出生于芬兰，在芬兰接受教育，年仅十七岁就获得了北大西洋学院的入学奖学金。北大西洋学院是威尔士的一家寄宿学校，其办学宗旨为汇集和培养未来的领导人。毕业后，他在英国伦敦经济学院拿下了MBA学位，就职于花旗银行的伦敦办事处， 负责诺基亚公司的账户业务。随后他加入了诺基亚公司，并在一年之内成为为融资部门负责人。1990年，他被任命为手机业务部主管。公司这时给了他六个月的时间决定出售还是保留手机部门。经过4个月时间，他给出了回答：保留。他参观了公司在位于离赫尔辛基大约一个小时车程的萨罗开办的工厂。在那里，他得知公司正在努力准备使产品符合新的欧洲移动数字标准--GSM （全球移动通信系统）。“当时GSM项目还毫无秩序”， 奥利拉2001年回忆道。“关于这项技术的前景和困难，当时尚有许多不明朗之处。”

他成功地缩短了思考时间，简化了生产流程。1991年芬兰总理第一个使用诺基亚手机进行GSM通话。因其出色表现，奥利拉1992年被任命为诺基亚公司首席执行官。在80年代，奥利拉并非诺基亚新用雇员中唯一一个后来居上者。1989年，诺基亚公司将一名年轻的经理，赫塔阿拉胡塔送往瑞士商学院进修，并在那思索公司的未来。尤其需要深思的是，诺基亚如何能以自身的小规模超越其竞争对手。他得出的结论是，诺基亚最需要的是技术革新，这是诺基亚最有把握抓住并加以利用的优势。1991年， 在副手的帮助下 ，首席财务官奥利派克为公司写下了一条新口号：“以电信为导向，以电信为重点，发展全球性的增值业务。 ”一言以蔽之，重点就是手机。奥利拉认为，手机虽然在现阶段只是昂贵而笨重的商业设备，可将来却一定会普及，并在生活中占据重要地位，公司完全可下此赌注。

由于投资者对于这一新策略很看好，所以诺基亚在美国募集到了足够的资金。此时公司开始放弃其余的业务（今日诺基亚胶靴已被视为收藏品）。诺基亚数字领域下的赌注是正确的，它制造了世界上第一部数字电话。在后来成为世界主要通信标准的GSM上，诺基亚也未判断失误。但是，技术只是成功方程式的一部分。奥利拉明白，他必须建立诺基亚品牌。此往，公司出售的手机有好几种名字，比如RadioShack，现在它只会出售以NOKIA为名的手机。同样重要的是，产品必须具有统一的外形，这样人们在看到品牌名称之前，就能识别这是什么品牌的手机。奥里拉找到洛杉矶的一名设计师弗兰克诺沃，与他签约，让他设计诺基亚新款手机。诺沃设计出一款具有平滑圆角，大屏幕和智能按键的手机，跟以往边缘直硬的手机相比，可谓大飞跃。诺基亚公司2004年推出了一款命名为2100的手机,希望能出售400000台左右。实际上该型号的销售额超过20了亿美元。 诺沃1995年加入公司，担任首席设计师。 这一年也恰是诺基亚开始实施其品牌战略的第二关键阶段：产品差异化阶段。到现在，手机小巧可爱已不足为奇。然而如今人手一部手机的局面使诺基亚意识到，它可以向不同的人出售不同种类的手机。诺基亚内部流传说，有些工程师开始用汽车漆喷涂自己的手机，这样他们在酒吧狂欢时，能辨认出自己的手机。于是，弗兰克诺沃的指导下，诺基亚开始制造颜色各异的手机，然后推出可更换面板，有数十种不同的铃声的手机。随后诺基亚又推出了堪称时尚典范的手机：闪亮，小巧，高品位。其竞争对手，特别是爱立信和摩托罗拉公司，却没有跟上步伐。到1998年，诺基亚公司成为世界头号手机制造商。 在五年时间里其股价已上升近2000%。 不过，诺基亚公司看重的不仅仅是潮流， 1990年代期间，诺基亚已经创造出一种企业文化：允许各部门有自己的想法，无论是在芬兰，还是世界各地日益增多的工厂里，办公室里，或是设计实验室里，思想的火花处处迸发。奥利拉坚持所谓的“精英”控制，他有一个紧密团结的管理团队，大部分是芬兰人，充当“看门人”的角色：例如，弗兰克诺沃，每一项设计决定都要由他签字把关。

这是一种弹性的结构。在历史上，这种结构即使遭遇股票市场的剧烈波动，也能经受住考验。诺基亚公司经历了包括布尔什维克革命，内战，其首席执行官在1988年死亡等一系列更糟糕的形势，仍然存活了下来。奥利拉认为在能把互联网装入每个人的口袋里的所谓“3G手机”时代，诺基亚也有很好的定位。 新的3G手机使用互联网式数据传输，这意味着诺基亚不仅需要和亚洲手机制造商三星，LG电子以及索尼爱立信竞争，而且还受到来自电子个人助理制造商Palm和能从应用软件里看到无限可能性的微软公司的压力。结果是，诺基亚的市场份额从2005占世界市场的百分之三十八下滑到2004年底的百分之三十，从而导致诺基亚历史上又一次股票价格大波动，不过从那时起，其市场份额似乎已经稳定下来。在2005年，诺基亚宣布了一项新的称为"770互联网"的设备 ——不是电话，而是一本书大小的网页浏览器，可以代替笔记本在有Wi - Fi网络的地方上网， 售价约350美元。诺基亚公司认为，作为手机行业的主导品牌，以及行业销量最高的企业，不管技术的导向如何，它在开发利用新技术方面总能占据最佳地位。

“芬兰气候寒冷，我们必须适应生存。 ”
Nokia - “Be adaptable to survive”
Friday, 09 March 2007

A LITTLE OVER A DECADE AGO, NOKIA WAS AN UNKNOWN COMPANY IN A TINY country on the edge of the Arctic Circle. So little was known about it, in fact, that until recently most people assumed it must be Japanese.

Today, the Finland-based firm makes three out of every ten mobile phones sold around the world, convincingly trumping electronics giants such as Motorola and Ericsson. Its brand was rated the sixth most valuable by Interbrand in 2005, just behind Microsoft and Coca-Cola. It is Finland’s largest exporter, has inspired a technology boom around the capital, Helsinki, and its shares have created thousands of Finnish millionaires. Mobile phones are so commonplace in Finland today (seven hundred per one thousand people) that teenagers call them kännykkä, or känny, which means “an extension of the hand.” Bold leadership, inspired hiring decisions, good timing, and an element of national character all played a role in Nokia’s success.

The company dates back to 1865, when it ran a lumber mill in the southern Finnish town of Nokia. It expanded slowly into rubber, making boots, cables, and phone lines. In the early 1960s, thanks to its telecom connections, it began to dabble in early radio telephones.

Sparsely populated Scandinavia was a natural market, and when the region launched a basic cellular network in 1981, Nokia ran a small factory to supply the early phones, such as a ten-kilogram car phone. If that was where the company’s future lay, though, it was far from obvious. Nokia diversified into televisions and computers without much success. By the mid-1980s, the company’s main achievements were as the chief supplier of toilet paper to Ireland and the world’s only manufacturer of studded winter bicycle tires. In 1987, Nokia’s fledgling mobile phone business started losing money. Under the direction of CEO Kari Kairamo, Nokia started looking for a Japanese partner to help it build a consumer electronics brand, but, as negotiations were under way in 1988, Kairamo committed suicide after battling depression.

In 1991, the Soviet Union, Finland’s main trading partner, collapsed, and Nokia’s traditional businesses started struggling too. With shareholders complaining, Nokia management considered selling off the mobile phone interests to cut costs. First, though, they turned to a young executive called Jorma Ollila to see if the mobile phone division could be turned around. Ollila, who had joined the company in 1985, was always a bright prospect. Although born and schooled in Finland, at the age of seventeen he gained a scholarship to attend Atlantic College, an idealistic
boarding school in Wales designed to bring together future leaders. After graduating, he studied for an MBA at the London School of Economics and worked at Citibank’s London office, where he was given the Nokia account to look after. Within a year of joining Nokia, he was appointed head of finance. In 1990, he was made head of the mobile phone division and was given six months to decide whether to sell up or keep it. After four months, he replied: keep it. He had visited the factory in Salo, about an hour from Helsinki, where he learned the company was struggling to prepare for the new European mobile digital standard, GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications). “The
GSM project was in disarray,” Ollila recalled in 2001. “There was a lot of disillusionment with the spec and the difficulty of the technology.”

He streamlined the process so successfully—the first GSM call was made in 1991 by the Prime Minister of Finland on a Nokia mobile—that in 1992 Ollila was named CEO. Ollila was not the only smart newcomer Nokia had hired in the
1980s. In 1989, it had sent Matti Alahuhta, a young manager, on a sabbatical to a Swiss business school to ponder the company’s future: particularly, how it could overtake its rivals from such a small base. He concluded that what Nokia needed was a technological shift, something Nokia could grasp first and use to gain an advantage. Ollila could see that shift occurring. In 1991, with his righthand man, CFO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, he decided on a new mantra: “telecom-oriented, focus, global, value-added.” In a nutshell, that meant mobile phones. Ollila believed mobiles, at that stage still expensive and cumbersome business equipment, would become ubiquitous—important enough to bet the company on.

Investors liked the new approach enough that Nokia was able to raise cash in the United States and the company set about ditching the rest of its businesses (today Nokia rubber boots are considered collectors’ items).

Nokia had gambled correctly on digital, manufacturing the first digital phone, and GSM, which was to become the dominant world standard. But technology was only part of the equation: Ollila knew he had to build Nokia into a brand.
The company had previously sold mobiles under several names, including RadioShack; now it would only sell under its own name. Just as important was a uniform look to the company’s products, so they were recognizable even before you saw the brand. Ollila contracted a Los Angeles designer called Frank Nuovo to work on the first of the new line of phones. Nuovo sculpted a smoothly rounded form with a big screen and intuitive keys, a quantum leap from its sharp-edged predecessors. Nokia hoped to sell 400,000 of the model, launched in 2004 under the name 2100. It sold more than 20 million. Nuovo joined the company as chief designer in 1995, which was when Nokia began implementing the second pivotal phase of its branding strategy: differentiation. Up until now, it had been enough for a phone to be small and cute. But now that more and more people owned one, Nokia realized it could sell different kinds of phones to different people. Nokia folklore has it that its engineers started painting their phones with car paint so they would recognize them on the bar of the local watering hole. So, under the guidance of Frank Nuovo, Nokia started making
phones in different colors. Then, phones with interchangeable faceplates and phones with dozens of different ring tones. Then came the phone as fashion statement: shiny, tiny, high-status phones. Its competitors, particularly Ericsson and Motorola, could not keep up. By 1998, Nokia was the world’s number one cell phone manufacturer. In five years its stock had risen almost 2,000 percent. It was not just about fashion, though: during the 1990s Nokia had developed a corporate culture that it says allows departments to do their own thing and for ideas to bubble up from anywhere in
the organization, whether in Finland or at any of a growing number of factories, offices, and design labs around the world. Keeping what Ollila calls a “meritocracy” under control is a tight-knit management team—mostly Finns—who act as gatekeepers: Frank Nuovo, for example, signs off every design decision.

It is a resilient structure that in recent history has weathered severe stock market volatility. As a company, Nokia has already survived much worse, including the Bolshevik revolution, a civil war, and the death of its CEO in 1988.
Ollila believes Nokia is well-placed for the so-called third generation of phones, which will put the Internet in everybody’s pocket.

The new phones use Internet-style data transmission, which means Nokia is facing competition from phone makers such as Asian makers Samsung and LG and a revitalized Sony-Ericsson partnership, but also from computer firms such as Palm (who make electronic personal assistants) and even Microsoft, who can see endless possibilities in software applications. As a result, Nokia’s market share slipped from 38 percent of the world market in 2005 to 30 percent by the end of 2004, resulting in another savaging of the historically volatile share price, though its market share appears to have stabilized since. In 2005, Nokia announced a new device called the 770 Internet Tablet— not a phone, but a book-sized web browser you could use in Wi-Fi hot spots instead of a full-blown laptop, for around $350 (or less as part
of a phone-style connection deal). Nokia argues that as the dominant brand, with the highest volumes in the industry, it is in the best position to exploit the new technology, wherever it leads. “We can jump on it and adapt,” says Ollila.