Unit 10 : Connecting people

P: Well, if you haven’t already guessed, tonight’s company is Nokia. Rob, Nokia, a company from Finland, a country with only five million people, today the world’s largest producer of mobile phones. How is it so successful?

R: Well, the most important reason, I think, is producing the right product at the right time. There’s been a big increase in the market for mobile phones recently and Nokia’s sell have gone up dramatically. For example, In 1998, Nokia sold 440 million mobile phones. In 1999, that number went up to 78 million. That’s an amazing increase of 92 percent in just one year!

P: Yes, that is amazing. And is Nokia working hard to keep its position at the top ?

R: Yes, and to do that in the past few years it’s recruited people of thirty different nationalities at its Research Centre in Helsinki and it’s ebtablished research and development centres in 14 countries.

P: To make sure its products are right for the local markets?

R: Exactly.

P: So its decision to focus on telecommunications and sell its other business activites was the right one?

R: Oh, definitely. The world has changed completely since Nokia started producing paper in 1965 and Nokia has changed with the times.

P: Yes, and been very successful. Has Nokia ever experienced bad times?

R: Yes, it has, like most companies. At the beginning of the 1990 there was a bad recession in Finland so Nokia had a very difficult time then. After the recession it decided to focus on telecommunications, as the industry of the future.

P: Do you think Nokia will continue to be successful in the future?

R: Yes, but I don’t think we’ll see the dramatic increase in sales of mobile phones that we saw in 1999. In fact, sales are beginning to go down at the moment.

P: Thank you, Rob. And now let’s go to our ___ in Finland to find out what it’s like working for Nokia.