The Nokia Revolution : The Story of an Extraordinary Company That Transformed an Industry [Hardcover]

Dan Steinbock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2001

Everyone knows Nokia the cell phone company, but no one really knows "about" them. What makes this company tick? How did they manage to take the competitive technology scene by storm? What did the company do before it became a global powerhouse? This book supplies an in-depth, behind-the-scenes examination of the Finnish company's history, its successful business strategies, and its breakthrough technological innovations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Intended for the PowerPoint and Palm Pilot crowd, this dense book is packed with the results of Steinbock's prodigious research into the mobile communications behemoth, including reams of charts, stats and history that are likely to overwhelm casual readers. Nokia, which now dominates wireless communications worldwide, started in 1865 as a small timber concern in rural Finland. A little more than 100 years later, it merged with a rubber works company and a cabling firm to form the Nokia Corporation. In the late 1970s and '80s, the energetic and charming Kari Kairamo guided the company's transformation into a diversified, global corporation that led many extraordinary advances in portable communications. Tragically, the mercurial Kairamo committed suicide in 1988. Jorma Ollila was made CEO in 1992. While Motorola and Ericsson concentrated on developing new technologies during the 1990s, Nokia focused on digital (as opposed to analog) phones. Today, Nokia makes about one out of every three cell phones in the world and is truly international: about half of the company's 55,000 employees (all of whom speak English) are Finnish, yet less than 3% of Nokia's revenues come from Finland. While the author, a "visiting virtual professor" at the Helsinki School of Economics as well as a researcher at the Columbia Business School, is clearly enamored with the company, he never slips into mindless praise, letting Nokia's record speak for itself. (June 29)Forecast: The dot-coms are going up in smoke, but we still have our Nokias. Amid New Economy eulogies, readers interested in mobile communications and corporate strategy will be glad to find a high-tech success story they can still believe in.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Steinbock tells the story of Nokia, the 140-year-old Finnish company that has become a global powerhouse in mobile communications and a leader in the development of third-generation wireless services. The company's management obviously cooperated in this report, for we see how it thinks, how it listens to its markets, and how it has designed remarkable strategies, all of which have, in the last 10 years, made the company a case study in corporate success, with stock trading in May 2000 at approximately 100 times earnings. This is excellent public relations for the company, which the author describes as unique in its persistence, its alignment between upstream and downstream innovation, and its recent dogged efforts to globalize and conquer world markets. Part 1 recounts the history of the company, Part 2 covers the creation and evolution of Nokia's globalization strategy, and part 3 describes Nokia's preparation and innovation. A formidable global competitor, the company has its sights now set on the "next big thing": the mobile Internet. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; 1st edition (May 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081440636X
• ISBN-13: 978-0814406366
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,224,777 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #65 in Books > History > Europe > Finland

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a good lesson for businessmen, October 21, 2002

By 

Hairr "samoeq" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Nokia Revolution : The Story of an Extraordinary Company That Transformed an Industry (Hardcover)

Nokia Revolution has such a detailed history of this famous cell phone company from its very beginning of a wood pulp factory to the leading mobile and internet company now, that it taught me a lot more about how a business really works than how a successful company looks. Nokia, according to my poor knowledge before, is merely a famous company whose cell phones are said to be the most durable product that won't be broken even if you drop it a thousand times to the ground. This book makes me think much deeper into the struggle the company went through to get this kind of fabulous quality and services to satisfy customers' needs.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, November 19, 2001

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Nokia Revolution : The Story of an Extraordinary Company That Transformed an Industry (Hardcover)

Dan Steinbock gives you a riveting look at one of the most important companies of our time in an elegant, storytelling style. His text is rich in detail and seems to capture every conceivable perspective on every possible event in Nokia's 140-year-old history. Writing almost at the level of a fictional narrative, Steinbock adroitly takes you through the company's highs, lows and pivotal moments from its origins in the timber industry in the 1860s and the merger in the 1960s that first gave it an electronics division, to the suicide of its influential CEO in the 1980s. It's all here, along with Nokia's strategies and values. We [...] recommend this book to anyone who relishes well-written corporate adventures or who harbors a certain curiosity about events inside influential companies (or about corporate thought in Finland, for that matter).

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a nice historical point of view, March 22, 2002

By 

Liying Yao (Los Angeles, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Nokia Revolution : The Story of an Extraordinary Company That Transformed an Industry (Hardcover)

Did you know that Nokia started out in the mid-1800s as a forestry plant in Finland? Yes you heard right: a forestry plant! This is a very well written book about the history of the Nokia Corporation, its ups and downs, successes and tragedies. If you've ever wanted to know what Nokia was like before it became a mobile communications giant, then you should read this book. However, be forewarned that this book is not for the casual reader as it can get very technical in terms of economics.