Chapter 603 A Way Out

Jorma Ollila's honors in this life are inseparable from Nokia, because the peak moments of his life were achieved and spent in this company.

In August this year, he just celebrated his 60th birthday, but a month later, he ushered in another very unfortunate news. Nokia's stock hit a new historical low, not far from the key price of 3 euros. In the past ten years, since 1997, Nokia's stock price has never been so miserable.

Jorma Ollila is sitting in the big cafe at Nokia's headquarters in the west of Helsinki at this moment. This is the largest public place at Nokia's headquarters, with an area twice that of Nokia's largest conference room. Every time the company holds a general staff meeting, it will be held here, so it has witnessed Nokia's glory in the past ten years.

Cantina, this is the name of this cafe, which means tavern in English, but cellar in Italian.

The cafe is built of wood, steel and tempered glass, with a very IKEA flavor, but at the same time it has the atmosphere of a ski hotel in Northern Finland. It has always been regarded by Jorma Ollila as a witness to Nokia's glory, and this view has been passed down from the chairman of the Nokia board of directors to everyone in the company.

You know, Jorma Ollila has a pivotal position in Nokia.

As a native Finn, after completing his master's degree in political science at the University of Helsinki, Jorma Ollila went to London and spent two years to obtain a master's degree in economics from the London School of Economics. Then he joined Citibank's London headquarters as an account manager. Two years later, he was promoted to account director. Three years later, he became a member of Citibank's management committee. At that time, he was only 33 years old and very young and promising.

It can be said that Jorma Ollila is the most outstanding talent cultivated in Finland. Nokia was attracted by his experience in Citibank, so he was poached back to Finland in 1985 and joined Nokia's International Operations Department as vice president. A year later, he was promoted to senior vice president of the Ministry of Finance and a member of the executive board.

By 1990, Jorma Ollila became the president of the mobile phone company, the core department of Nokia. Two years later, he was promoted to the president and CEO of Nokia. Seven years later, he served as the chairman of the board of directors, CEO and chairman of the group executive board, and took all the power of the company into his own hands. It was not until 2006 that he handed over the CEO position to another local talent, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, but the company's greatest power was still firmly in his hands.

Throughout Jorma Ollila's first half of his life, his most glorious moment was undoubtedly bringing Nokia to the status of a world-famous giant company. At its peak, the market value exceeded 150 billion US dollars, making Jorma Ollila a top figure in the global financial world.

But since 2006, everything he had worked so hard to build has obviously been going downhill.

All commodities and enterprises have their life cycles, from inception to growth to maturity and then to decline. If Jorma Ollila led Nokia from growth to maturity, then in 2006, when he chose to leave the position of Nokia's CEO, he had already foreseen that Nokia would usher in a decline.

Just imagine that even some remote markets in Africa that are considered poor and backward by everyone are full of Nokia's low-end mobile phones. This not only represents Nokia's success, but also tells everyone one thing: Nokia's mobile phone market is saturated, and it is difficult for the mobile phone business to have any major breakthroughs. It must transform and adjust.

During his tenure as the head of Nokia, although Kallasvuo brought considerable changes and adjustments to the company, he ultimately failed to bring about a revolutionary transformation. Nokia could not escape the vortex of decline.

Looking back now, the reforms that Kallasvuo envisioned were too small and too cautious, so that Nokia's reforms looked more like small fights. After the strong rise of Zeus mobile phones from Leaf Technology, coupled with the strong attack of the Android system, Nokia's reforms were completely declared a failure.

What's more, what no one expected is that Leaf Technology not only shook Nokia's position with Zeus mobile phones and smartphone systems, but also opened up the Android system to the outside world, and soon supported powerful mobile phone manufacturers including Samsung and HTC, but more importantly, Leaf Technology strongly supported smartphone manufacturers from China.

Although many Europeans criticize Made in China, believing that it represents copycats and inferior quality, it turns out that Leaf Technology has very high requirements for its partners. Mobile phone manufacturers that can obtain Android systems and patent licenses have certain strengths. Coupled with China's strong industrial manufacturing capabilities, the smartphones they manufacture are cheaper, with better user experience and more powerful functions, and they are immediately sold all over the world.

The result of this is that Nokia's mobile phone profits have been completely reduced to an incredible low point.

For Leaf Technology, everyone in Nokia admires and hates it. They admire the strength of this company, and they hate it because this company is the culprit of Nokia's current predicament.

But Jorma Ollila himself knows very well that for a giant consortium like Nokia with a market value of more than 150 billion US dollars, the core factor that can lead to its collapse must come from within. He realized this as early as 2006 when he stepped down as CEO. In the absence of revolutionary changes brought by Kallasvuo, Nokia's decline is inevitable.

Not long ago, Moody's Investors Service issued an announcement stating that it was commenting on Nokia's rating and believed that Nokia's profitability in the core mobile phone field was rapidly declining. Next, Nokia's long-term rating may be further downgraded, which will inevitably lead to investors losing confidence in Nokia and further decline in stock prices.

As a talent who came out of Citibank, Jorma Ollila certainly knows what consequences will be brought about by Moody's downgrading Nokia's rating. In fact, he and the board of directors had already considered this a year ago, when Nokia had already shown a decline, but it was not as obvious as it is now.

Once a large consortium like Nokia shows a development decline, there is basically only one way to go, saving money and increasing revenue, selling businesses and assets, and Nokia's most valuable assets are undoubtedly mobile phones and map businesses.

Jorma Ollila is well aware that there is no shortage of people interested in Nokia's assets, such as Elisa Moon, CEO of Leaf Technology, who came to Finland in person not long ago. The scary woman ostensibly came to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of Leaf Technology's Nordic Data Center Building, but in fact she met with Jorma Ollila and bluntly proposed to acquire it.

Leaf Technology has been promoting cloud computing services in Northern Europe for many years. Now their headquarters is less than 300 meters away from Nokia's headquarters, which is closer than Microsoft's headquarters, which is about one kilometer away from Nokia's headquarters. The headquarters of the three companies are surrounded by this yacht pier, which is a very interesting landscape.

Microsoft is also very interested in Nokia, but more through cooperation. They hope that Microsoft can choose Nokia's WP mobile phone system, but everyone knows that this mobile phone system is not ideal and cannot compete with the Android system at all. Microsoft has also offered generous conditions. Their core purpose is to transfer Nokia's mobile phone users from Symbian to the WP system.

Jorma Ollila is not a fool. Of course, he can see through this, so he is also hesitating. At the same time, he sees more clearly that Microsoft has no intention of acquiring Nokia's business, or not yet.

In the past year, everyone in the world has focused their attention on Motorola.

Since the American media first broke the news that Leaf Technology was going to acquire Motorola, this news immediately attracted the attention of all smartphone users in the world, and Google and Apple soon announced that they would join the competition, which made Motorola very popular. In Jorma Ollila's view, Leaf Technology was making preparations for both situations, and it must get one of Motorola and Nokia.

"What an ambitious big company!" When thinking of this, Jorma Ollila sighed.

Once upon a time, Nokia was also ambitious to develop, acquire, and further expand its business like Leaf Technology now, but how could they have thought of today?

Motorola attracted the attention of all competitors, and Nokia was naturally ignored. In fact, although Nokia's crisis is obvious now, it has not reached the bad level of Motorola in terms of mobile phone sales and operating income, so no one would have thought that Leaf Technology would be so ambitious to acquire Nokia.

And they are not just going to acquire Nokia's mobile phone business, but also another core business, maps.

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"I heard that Leaf Technology has lobbied the government, and the government has told Leaf Technology that it will not block this potential acquisition, but the premise is that Nokia must continue to stay in Finland!"

Not far from the Cantina Cafe, several young people gathered together to talk, and their voices reached Jorma Ollila's ears. Obviously, they didn't notice the existence of the old man, perhaps because he was sitting in a remote position.

Jorma Ollila took a look and saw that the person who spoke was Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia's senior vice president of design and the son of former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari. After the latter stepped down, the Social Democratic Party still took office, and the senior officials he reused were still officials during Martti Ahtisaari's period, so Marko was able to get some inside information, and Jorma Ollila was not surprised.

However, this news is really surprising. You know, Nokia has always been the pillar of Finland.

In 2004, Nokia contributed 4% of Finland's GDP. By 2007, Nokia's R\u0026D expenditure accounted for 30% of Finland's GDP, and its exports accounted for 20% of Finland's GDP. These data show Nokia's influence on Finland.

"Really?" The person sitting opposite Marko had his back to Jorma Ollila. His face was not clear, but his voice told him that he was Nokia's head of industrial design, Stefan Pennebaker, and he was a good friend of Marko.

"It's true!" Marko said very confidently, "I got the news that Leaf Technology decided to use Finland as the data center base in Northern Europe or even Europe, so they decided to build a Nordic headquarters building nearby, which is very attractive to the government."

"And everyone knows that the government has had some controversy over Nokia's existence in the past. On the one hand, it is very dependent on it, but on the other hand, it feels that Nokia has siphoned talents from all walks of life, causing the Finnish society to lack vitality. Some people often stand up to bombard and accuse it."

This is actually an embarrassment that is difficult to achieve the best of both worlds, because Nokia's huge size is the pride of the Finnish people, making almost all Finns proud to join Nokia, but in this way, Nokia's existence has become a huge talent siphoning field, and talents from other walks of life have been sucked into Nokia.

Just like Marko, he once studied in Finland, Tanzania and the United States, served as a lecturer in the philosophy department of Columbia University, and won the Grammy Showcase Award for his music creation. He is also a judge of the Linz Electronic Art Competition in Austria, etc.

Such a versatile Finn, after returning to his country, founded a digital service company, and then founded a company that specializes in providing social map services for travel, but it was acquired by Nokia not long after, and he himself became Nokia's senior vice president of design. Nokia valued his versatility and imagination.

There are many similar cases. Nokia is like a huge monster that devours talents. Its existence itself is mixed with praise and criticism. If it is at its peak, it is difficult for anyone to say anything. But now it is obviously declining, so those voices have appeared again.

"I have always believed that the company's system is too dogmatic and rigid, lacking creativity, especially for us Salo people!" There was another person sitting at the scene, Jus Roper, from Salo, a mobile phone town 70 kilometers west of Helsinki, where many Nokia R\u0026D and design centers are located.

Salo has always been the source of Nokia's design. Many insiders know that many of Nokia's classic mobile phone styles come from Salo's designs. However, Salo has always been the hardest hit area in the past wave of layoffs. There is news that Nokia will lay off 10,000 people at the beginning of next year, and Salo will still be the hardest hit area.

If Pennebaker, who is dressed brightly and full of brand names, represents the fashionable side of Nokia, then Roper represents the traditional engineer side of Nokia. He always wears very casual and relaxed casual clothes, and is often a little unkempt.

"I heard that now including Leaf Technology, Google, Apple and other big companies, the world is recruiting creative talents, but we used to not only stifle the creativity of employees, but now we are actively sending talents to each other. It's painful to think about it!"

The rise of Salo, a mobile phone center, is because of Nokia. If Nokia collapses, Salo will inevitably collapse as well.

"Do you want to know what I feel most after coming to Nokia?" Hans Henrik Land, a new recruit in the marketing department, has his own thoughts and insights on this. He is a new recruit who has just joined Nokia. He met several veterans in the cafe and made friends with them.

In Nokia, you can often find your fellow countrymen, because Finland is so small.

"I think the biggest problem of this company lies in the rigidity of the system and factions!" Land spoke loudly, with a bit of the momentum of a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers. "Every time I attend a meeting, it is always easy to turn a topic that could have been discussed well into a focus of dispute between two factions."

"Some people want to catch up with our competitors, but some people always work emotionally, thinking that sticking to the original things will ensure that we will not lose to any opponent. In the end, they quarreled for several hours without any results, and each of them dispersed and came back tomorrow!" Land spread his hands, obviously having no way out.

In order to catch up with its competitors, Nokia has attracted many young and creative talents from outside to join the company in the past few years, injecting some freshness and vitality. For example, Marko, Pennebaker and others came in this way, but the company also has many veterans who have been here for many years and have created countless glories and won countless honors.

In the eyes of these people, Nokia's current situation is only temporary, just because our competitors have made one or two best-selling mobile phones, and Nokia has not been able to make mobile phones that users like in the past few years, that's all.

They often have a theory that "as long as we make exciting and good products again, we will once again defeat all opponents and have the best financial statements in history again!"

This theory is correct on the surface, but the question is, how do you make exciting products?

Rely on what Nokia had when it reached its peak of glory in the past? Continue with the Symbian system that once made great contributions to Nokia but obviously can't keep up with the times?

Anyone who has used Symbian and Android systems can easily distinguish the advantages and disadvantages of these two mobile phone operating systems. However, many people have not been able to change their mindset even now, and this is Nokia's biggest problem at present.

"If there are another layoffs at the beginning of next year, I may also go to Leaf Technology. Joe Harlow told me before that he is great there, with good pay, a relaxed working environment, and at the same time, he can get a lot of play. "Space, you know, he is in charge of the smart device business. He originally proposed to make a smartphone similar to the Zeus phone, but it was later rejected. He is now very popular in Yee Technology," Roper said a little sadly. own decision.

When Nokia's layoffs caused people to panic, Leaf Technology often poached professional talents from Nokia. After all, Nokia itself has an extremely strong talent reserve and technical foundation, and Joe Harlow is one of them.

After hearing Roper's words, everyone else fell silent. It was obvious that they all had their own little calculations and thoughts.

Jorma Ollila also fell silent. He was very familiar with Roper. This was a young Finnish man who was once passionate and eager for Nokia, but now he said that he might switch to the biggest competitor. This shows that he has great feelings for this company. The extent of the company’s disappointment.

Could it be that in the past many years, we have really not only missed something, but also done something wrong?

This question came to Yorma Ollila's mind, and he was confused and confused.

Maybe he needs to know some answers, and this answer may help him find a way out of the current dilemma, or make some kind of decision!