The change is huge, most probably the largest Nokia has gone through in 15-20 years. Then again, as Jorma Ollila, the chairman of the company, stated in Finland a few days ago: ”Finland never understood Nokia’s big changes”.
Ollila was of course referring to the changes Nokia went through in early ’90s in focusing only on building mobile phones instead of the array of home electronics it used to cater to consumers.
However, the world’s very much different in many ways compared to how it used to be in the ’90s. The Berlin Wall had just come down, showing the lack of offering and financial hardship the East had had to suffer. Today’s world is very much universal compared to that of 20 years ago. Communication travels faster, national borders have little effect on consumers and most significantly – companies certainly aren’t enjoying the same respect they enjoyed some 20 years ago.
Coming back to this day, the Nokia-Microsoft alliance is something the technology industry hasn’t really witnessed in a while – if at all. There’s a lot of chances things will go wrong, but the issue to remember is – there isn’t reward without risk. And Nokia is at a point where it needs to accept more risk in the face of larger potential reward.
Finland’s startup ecosystem
Since the partnership itself has been covered in numerous news sites and outlets to all possible extents – I’ll take a slightly different view into all this trying to answer the question; what will this mean for the startup ecosystem that we too in ArcticStartup embrace and promote to our fullest?
Before we dive in though, a little something about the Finnish technology scene. Many companies in Finland are direct and indirect contractors to Nokia, making the country of Finland somewhat a contractor to Nokia – relying on its employment possibilities and ability to generate wealth. Now that Nokia’s stability is in question, people are wondering about the thousands of people who might be put out of work as Nokia focuses on something else?
What many people forget is that we need to embrace change and look at new situations in positive light. Sure it’s not very nice to be unemployed, but other opportunities will arise. Needless to say, those who are prepared for them will be able to better take advantage of them.
Nokia layoffs?
Let’s play a mind game here. Let’s, for the sake of argument, state that Nokia would have to downsize its organization by about 3,000 people. This is a big number in a country like Finland (Editor’s note: Finand’s total is 5.3 million). If these people have software engineering backgrounds – there are huge opportunities for them outside Nokia.
One of the huge opportunities available includes a potential talent grab by other technology companies (that don’t directly contract to Nokia). Google, for one, has already publicly stated they’re interested in Nokia’s talent. I’m sure other companies as well will seriously look into establishing R&D centers in Finland, even if they might be small.
A few years ago, as Nokia went through one of its larger downsizing rounds, it got rid of hundreds of employees and gave them exit packages. In many cases, if they had worked at Nokia for years, people received 12 months pay as a “bonus” for leaving voluntarily. This helped create many new IT/consumer internet companies in Finland as they now had the much needed early-stage financing that is usually lacking in Northern Europe.
The future for Finnish tech
Being the optimist that I am, while realising that there will be incredible hardship among certain individuals and families in the future to come, I believe this will be the biggest opportunity for Finland to diversify its high technology entrepreneurship ecosystem.
While many larger companies work with Nokia, this isn’t the case with the startup scene in Finland. Many startups have, perhaps rightly so, realised that it’s not healthy to cater to a mere few giants, because if they do decide to change course – there will be trouble. Thus the direct effects (of Nokia layoffs) to the growth entrepreneurship scene are only positive.
As a nation, Finland will certainly have to work hard to overcome the massive change that possible Nokia layoffs will have. However, an event like this is yet again a great reminder to us all, entrepreneurs and employees, Finnish or not, that we really need to embrace and prepare for change.
Change is always a huge opportunity in itself. Some will lose, some will win, but those who embrace and prepare for it – will most likely come out as winners.
Antti Vilpponen is the CEO and co-founder of ArcticStartup, Northern Europe’s largest online media covering technology growth entrepreneurship. The site is run and operated from Finland.
[Photo from Erkka P]
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