STRATOS 2013 STUDY TRIP TO HONG KONG (21.5. – 28.5.2013)

The destination of the Stratos 2013 study trip was Hong Kong – one of the most important centers of international business in the world. Since the Brits left Hong Kong in 1997, Hong Kong has continued thriving as an important hub for international commerce and banking.

This year the Stratos study trip included a variety of activities, starting from interesting excursions to Finnish companies and finishing with a boat ride along the shores of Hong Kong. Every day was packed with things to do and we got so much done. We did interesting excursions to Nokia sales office, Finpro, and the consulate of Finland and Macau - another special administrative region in China. We also visited the traditional horseraces at the Happy Valley horse track and cruised along the coastline of Hong Kong island in a wooden boat. The trip was also filled with memorable smaller things, such as trying out local Cantonese cuisine, admiring the Hong Kong skyline lit up by night, sightseeing on Victoria Peak, and taking in the mere atmosphere of an international metropolitan city.

Excursion to Nokia

. Our host at Nokia was Pauline Ang, the head of Sales Operations in the Pan Asia region, as Nokia’s office in Hong Kong is responsible for managing the sales of countries such as Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam. In the beginning Pauline gave us a very valuable orientation on Hong Kong - starting from telling us exactly where we are located.

The first presentation was Chris Lee, who works with Nokia’s direct retail partners in Hong Kong. He gave us a good overview of the smart and mobile phone markets in Hong Kong, and of course told us about Nokia’s current situation and objectives there. It was interesting to learn that Hong Kong residents and especially young people consider smart phones to be an important part of their image and want to keep up with mobile trends. Most people own a smartphone, and are very aware of its features. It was surprising for us to find out that consumers of smart phones switch brands easily, and they trend-conscious consumers in Hong Kong change the old device to a new one on average every 4-6 months! Another interesting fact was that Hong Kong has no sales tax and no separate tax for luxury goods, so a lot of Chinese consumers choose to shop in Hong Kong. A distinctive characteristic of the smart phone market in Hong Kong is that 45 million mainland Chinese tourists annually flock to shop electronics and luxury goods.

Simon Lau, the head of product management, gave us a presentation about Nokia’s products’ success in Hong Kong. His approach was a very informative timeline, beginning from 2011 until today. This way the timeline covered the impacts of the shutdown of Symbian, the launch of the iPhone 4 and the switch to Windows-based smart phones.

Sunny Tong then held a presentation about Nokia’s marketing strategies in HK. She told us about a new strategy that goes: “Blending in is out”. Social media and photo shop applications were very important in this new strategy and also for the HK smartphone users. We were shown a few Nokia commercial clips from Youtube to illustrate the difference between marketing strategies in Hong Kong and the ‘overseas’ Nokia. The videos featured well-known hongkongese bloggers and celebrities.

Next it was Dennis Lam’s turn to tell us about the practical activities of Nokia’s marketing in HK. The biggest activity was the Nokia Roadshow, where people have a chance to test the Nokia phones and Nokia’s salesmen can teach people how to use them, as people are not so familiar with the Windows Phone operating system yet.

The final presentation at the excursion was Choco Chan’s. She gave us an energetic presentation about how Nokia trains their sales people, and told us about Nokia’s employee engagement programs. One program was the “Switch” –program, which was actually won by Choco herself! She had made an energetic video that illustrated how the new Nokia Lumia phone is the best in the market at the moment.

All in all, we enjoyed our visit to Nokia very much. Presentations were truly interesting, the people at Nokia in HK were so nice to us, and we felt that we were very welcome there.

Excursion to consulate & Finpro:

Next excursion was made to the Finnish consulate in Hong Kong. This was a combined excursion also to Finpro, as Eric Cheng from Finpro was also there to give us a presentation about Finpro’s activities in Hong Kong. Annikki Arponen, the consul-general of the consulate general of Finland, was our host. Nina Pahlman, the general manager of the Finnish chamber of commerce in Hong Kong, and Joakim Heino, the Chairman of the Finnish Chamber of Commerce were also present.

First Annikki gave us a bigger presentation about the basic things that the consulate does, which was very interesting. A good illustration of what the purpose of the consulate is, was to compare it to a fire station – they have to stay alert at all times and hope that nothing too big happens, because usually that means that somebody is in trouble. Then everyone presented themselves, held a brief presentation about who they were and told us details about their work and Hong Kong.

After this the occasion was more interactive, as we had many interesting discussions about the business opportunities for Finnish companies in HK. We learned a lot through listening and participating in the discussion, one key point was that HK is a gateway to the market in China. “If you don’t make it in Hong Kong, you won’t make it in China” – they told us. Hong Kong is in that sense a very good environment for businesses that are willing to enter the Chinese market, to test their capabilities first. We also learned that it is almost too easy to open up a business in Hong Kong, making the business profitable is another thing and takes a lot of hard work and effort. If the business won’t succeed in China, it’s also quite hard to close up a business due to bureaucracy.

Help from companies like Finpro is essential to avoid the pitfalls of entering the Hong Kong market, and the preparation and analysis of the market beforehand is also crucial – it’s not all smooth sailing. Still it sure seemed like HK can offer a lot of very good opportunities for foreign companies to internationalize and expand their business and also to test their wings before storming to the Chinese markets.

Trip to Macau:

One highlight of our study trip was to visit the casino capital of the world by revenue – Macau.

Best way to travel to Macau from Hong Kong is by ferry. It’s really fast and it only takes about an hour to get there. Based on other peoples negative experiences we had read from the Internet, we were quite worried that the fast boat trip would makes us a bit sea sick. But luckily the seas were favorable that day and the ride was very smooth.

Macau had a lot to offer, it was a place where you could notice a strong contrast between old colonial times and modern capitalism. On one hand the unique history and the influence of Portugal was easy to see, as a lot of the architecture and  even the tiles on the ground were designed in a typically Portuguese fashion. This was in some places fascinatingly mixed with newer Chinese architecture and atmosphere. On other hand the contrast between poor and huge richness was quite obvious. Massive and sparkling casinos, built to serve the super rich people coming from mainland China, beside old and worn out buildings created a very special mix.

Our trip was roughly divided into two sections. During the day we got to know the city’s architecture and culture by walking around the streets in the older part of Macau. When the sun set, it was time to hit the casinos and we did that by visiting the biggest casino in the world; the Venetian, where we tried out the roulette and shopped in the many stores. In a sense the day trip’s two sectioned programs sum up the contrast of Macau.

As mentioned earlier, in addition to the excursions, the trip included a lot of fun day trips and just having fun as a group. Our spirits were high throughout the trip and the group stuck together very firmly. We took time to visit some of the more famous attractions like The Peak, Hotel Ritz Carlton’s world’s highest bar and on the last whole day left a boat ride that was a truly memorable event for all of us. Thank you all, and (多謝) duo tse!

Creating responsible business activities with Gaia

Wednesday 10th of April, was a very special day because the
consultancy company called Gaia threw one of its few excursions.
The morning started with a company presentation
from Mari Hjelt. Gaia is probably unknown company for many of the people of Aalto University

despite the fact that so many of its employees has a background in
former schools of Aalto.

Gaia is a consultancy company with roughly 40 professionals (number is
growing) who are located in Finland and all around the world. As Mari
stated, "Gaia has offices in Europe, China, Africa and Latin America,
and we collaborate with clients all around the world through our
network of professionals and partners." Gaia focuses its operation
into 4 different categories: Environment & Responsibility; Cleantech,
Innovation & Finance; Safety & Risk Management; and Energy & Climate.
The company differentiates itself from competitors by being concrete
and by creating high quality understanding over what ever the case at
the moment is. In addition, they often are the mediator  when business
consultants, engineering companies and research companies need to work
together. For example, they might be creating a process how a city can
utilize more renewable energy, or making a research how global warming
is affecting farming in Ethiopia  or making an assesment what would
happen if chemistry factory would be destroyed during a war.

Mari emphasized the fact that by doing business, they help businesses
to make the world cleaner and safer. From their point of view,
sustainability is a win-win situation for both parties. From my point
of view, there is one win missing because by helping companies become
more environmentally friendly, they are actually helping all of us.

After Mari's interesting presentation, a consultant from Gaia, Laura
Hakala, with few of her
colleagues shared their backgrounds and typical weekly routines by
describing and showing how Gaia way of business works. Typically a
consultant has 5-10 projects ongoing at given time. An individual
project can last from 1 week to 2 years but the majority of the
project last around 3 months. Also, projects vary very much which
means that a consultant has different roles and commitment to
different project (amount of work to be used). Gaia's professionals
are roughly 25-55 years old and the majority are female (60%, editor
note: they wouldn't  mind if there would be more men :).

Gaia's excursion definitely left the best for last - the case
competition. Gaia utilized learning by doing method during the last
phase of the excursion. Participants were divided into 3 groups and
were given an exciting challenge: create a project proposal or process
consultation plan for actual case of them. "Winner gets a prize!", was
the motivator in addition to fame and fortune. Cases from which groups
choose their description was:
1. Solar city plan for Kangas area in Jyväskylä
2. Customer- and market-driven business opportunities in bioeconomy in Finland
3. Business development for sustainable charcoal production in Tanzania
4. GHG mitigation and sustainable development through the promotion of
energy efficient cooking in social institutions in Ethiopia
5. Development a consortium for sustainable solutions for post disaster markets
Participants were given restricted amount of time to work with their
case and after-which they presented their work to the "strict" jury.

Embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldXBcVITqEQ !!!
Video description: Gaia's case video from Ethiopia - how to make
cooking in social institutions more efficient in Ethiopia.

Best team, team "efficient cooking in Ethiopia", was awarded with
great Gaia Buff tube scarfs. Their solution included some of the same
ideas that Gaia's final solution included. What was very interesting
about this case was that Gaia professionals were actually on the site
in Ethiopia to work with this case. They, for example, used local
artists to create a cartoon how to use this new cooker (reading
challenges limits the use of written information).
And, fortunately, also other teams were awarded for good work with
similar Gaia scarfs!

Thank you Gaia for very interesting excursion!

 ~ Eye-witness, Tuomo

A glance to the future of the mobile industry at Nokia

Our visit to the headquarters of Nokia in Keilalahti started at the futuristic Nokia Lounge, where we were presented with the latest in Nokia’s product offerings. In addition to the colorful new Lumia smartphones we tried out the new 301 and 105 mobile phones with maximum standby battery lives of over one month and some clever accessories for wireless charging and Bluetooth audio.

After the product introductions, Ukko Lappalainen (VP, Head of Business Development & Partnering) gave us a short introduction to the firm. This was followed by the host of our excursion, Mikko Muurinen and Benjamin Roszczewski (Managers of Strategy) presenting the key areas of Nokia’s corporate strategy. Many people associate Nokia only with mobile phones, but in reality thanks to Nokia’s wide R&D processes it governs a large and profitable patent portfolio. In addition, the maps and location based services Nokia acquired with NAVTEQ a few years ago are used widely for example by car manufacturers in the built-in navigation systems.

After a coffee break with snacks, Tiina Tapionlinna (Senior Manager of Strategy) told us about Nokia’s strategy in mobile phones including the popular Asha series with special features such as dual SIM cards, proven popular in the developing markets. Tiina also mentioned an interesting new feature in some of the mobile phones – the phone is capable of compressing data so that the consumer will have an even more affordable way of accessing the Internet. Kimmo Lehtosalo (Director of Product Strategy & Wave Planning) told more about smart devices and how Nokia has been able to incorporate new innovations such as wireless charging into their new line of Lumia phones. Marko Mahkonen (HR University Relations Manager) held the final presentation of the day and introduced us to the career prospects and paths at Nokia for graduates.

Dinner was waiting already at a conference space in one of the highest floors at Nokia House, where we moved next to enjoy a more casual atmosphere with drinks.  We had the opportunity to meet some young Nokia employees and even try out a new Xbox Kinect game! After enjoying the buffet and wine the journey continued to an event of Nokia Young Professionals at Grotesk, where we had the chance to chat a bit more with some younger Nokia employees in a relaxed setting.

-Patrik

Predicting the future with Elisa

Our Stratos visit to Elisa differed from the previous ones in that the excursion did not take place in the company’s formal premises, but rather at the Elisa Studio, a shop created to serve the needs of Elisa’s customers. The excursion was organized in the evening, so this more relaxed atmosphere with comfortable couches served us well. First we had a chance to hear a little bit about Elisa Studio, how it provides a place where customers can actually try out the different devices and services, and get face-to-face support. It really seemed quite a cool place with the comfortable couches and armchairs, headphones and gadgets all around.

After the introduction, Juho Urho, Elisa’s Account Vice President, shared his contagious enthusiasm about Elisa Visual Communications services, which include digital screens and virtual offices, for instance. What makes it special is that the services are provided as turnkey by Elisa and Videra, which is Elisa’s daughter company specializing in visual communications solutions. We learned Videra is the leading videoconference service provider in Northern Europe, providing services to some of the largest organizations in Europe and the USA. Also, Videra has managed to retain its start-up feeling and approach even though it is now part of a bigger company, helping it to remain agile and retain its key people.

After our group was already immersed in Elisa’s innovative solutions, up next was Kimmo Pentikäinen, Development Vice President at Elisa. He shared with us Elisa’s approach to work together with science and academics all around the world to ensure multiple perspectives and a stream of fresh ideas. At this point our Stratos group also got a chance to predict the future, and brainstorm what the next disruptive innovations will be. Among the many great  (and realistic!) visions our group generated were smart houses where even your coffee maker knows when your caffeine level is reaching low, and overall smarter life with mobile as a hub. In the future we expect to have devices to tell us when we need more energy, and observe our environment with augmented reality. Quite propeller heads, aren’t we?

Last but not least we also got to meet some former Stratos participants, today’s Elisa employees. First Laura Mattila shared her experiences of last year’s Stratos, and told a little bit about her journey at Elisa so far. Another “Stratos graduate”, Jussi Hermunen concluded with giving us all some advice for our future careers. He emphasized the need to be a specialist at something, and to be good enough at that to take it forward. We should strive to make ourselves important in the organization and develop our field of expertise, but also be able to share that wisdom and help others to take control over operations in order not to become irreplaceable. One should volunteer and be curious, and always move forward. Finally, if a headhunter contacts us (which they will!), we should be nice to them and save their email: you never know which network will become useful in the long run.

To summarize, Elisa provided us with great insight into the future at many levels, from individual to strategic. Thank you for hosting us, Elisa!

-Sarianne Lehto

Towards sustainable development with Neste Oil

On Tuesday 19th March, our Stratos group met in Keilaranta, Neste Oil´s headquarter. We had a warm welcome with coffee and veggie pie, which was actually praised to taste pretty good. The excursion consisted of 3 presentations from different persons and with different subjects. But we could definitely find the common thread of those presentations:  Neste Oil's core competence is in sustainability and renewable diesel.

Osmo Kammonen, Senior Vice President, Communications, Marketing and Public Affairs, started “ the presentation spell” by telling us about the company´s history and briefly about their business areas and future plans. We learned that Neste Oil was established in 1948 as the state petrol company, to secure Finland’s oil supply and now it is categorized as a refining and marketing company. Anyhow, the most amazing thing to hear was that an airline is testing Neste Oil´s renewable diesel as a flying fuel. Go Lufhansa! Though is still quite expensive we hope more airlines turning towards a greener future.

After Osmo´s introduction lecture, Henrik Erämetsä, Head of Market Development, Renewable Fuels, continued telling some more interesting points about ecological diesel. “It´s 2 to 3 times more expensive but it can be used in the engine of a normal car as it is”. So no matter which car you have you could use renewable fuel? If we understood it right, it sounds easy.

Last speaker, Risto Heikkala, working as a logistics manager in Renewable Fuels, spoke about the importance of supply chain management. All of us have probably heard a term “offshoring”, but what is “nearshoring” though? It is a derivative of offshoring - transferring task and business back close to companies. Neste Oil seems to push a lot into sustainability, but how does sustainability show in logistics strategy though? “Of course it shows, heavy vessel with tanks full of oil and raw materials are tried to transfer during as favorable wind circumstances as possible. Let the wind blow! We thank Neste Oil for their hospitality and interesting presentations.

-Jenni Räihä

Fazer company day & seminar

We started our day with a bus ride towards Vantaa. Maybe it was because of the excessive studying from previous night (for real?) or due to the excitement that was silently growing inside, but the atmosphere in the bus was unusually quiet as we were on our way to every child’s fantasyland. Once we got to the entrance hall of Fazer, the students gathered around the sofas where huge bowls were filled with chocolates. At the latest this point everyone knew that most likely we would exit the building with sore stomachs - and this time it would not be because of the usual reason for university students.

After the formalities we gathered in an auditorium. Once again, we were offered a bowl full of chocolates to keep us awake during the presentation. However, this was unnecessary as it turned out, since the presentations were getting our full attention on their own right.

At first Maija Hellman, Manager in Business Development, gave a few introductory words about Fazer and told us what our day was going to include. Then the board was given to Mika Sarimo, VP of Fazer Bakeries & Confectionery Marketing, who shared to us bits of Fazer’s current strategy. Sarimo informed about the Fazer’s position in the Nordic and the Baltic markets, and how Fazer was beginning to enter new foreign markets while also maintaining and even improving their already strong position in Finland and the other core markets. We were provided with insights on Fazer’s way of utilizing its focus brands for expanding to new product categories and bringing out new varieties. Sarimo also presented us the Cookie challenge, Fazer’s present mission in the cookie sector.

Next Heli Arantola, Senior Vice President in Fazer Mill BU and Business Development, gave us a presentation of the Fazer strategy and especially the strategy development within the company. We watched a video about Fazer’s new strategy called “Our Journey to New Places” and Arantola explained how the strategy was developed and communicated internally. After Arantola’s presentation we were treated with lunch; have to tell you, once again our stomachs were singing with joy.

After our bellies were full, we were ready to continue munching some more chocolates while Antti Tapiolinna, VP of Fresh Bakery Business and Head of Go-to-market activities, told us how Fazer was seeking growth in a declining market. Tapiolinna explained that traditionally the bakery market has been very different from how Fazer sees it today, with fresh lunch and snack products and suchlike.

Next up was Heli Holttinen, the director of Shops & Cafes Business Unit. She offered us a sneak peak into a new café concept Fazer is launching during the upcoming summer. The valuable lesson of the presentation was about how Fazer is making their in-depth ground research through multiple method research from benchmarking to netnographic studies.

The last presenter was Kirsi Puoliväli, HR Manager, who told us about careers and employee management at Fazer. The most exciting fact was Fazer’s strategy as a responsible employer, and how the company translates its corporate values into practice. We were happy to hear about Fazer’s family-like focus, since it seems rare in today’s corporate world, where market forces and efficiency dominate.

After presentations, the fun part was beginning. Before our actual tour in the factory, we were taken to another auditorium where we were shown a video about Fazer’s history, cocoa and CSR. After this we were truly excited of the opportunity to taste different kinds of chocolates and to see how those small beans that used to be treated as currency were turned into something so much sweeter. Hence, we were given a tour through various production lines where the chocolate mass was turned into all those familiar products we can find in our next-door markets. It was amazing to see the amount of automated power as well as handcraft skills required to produce the variety of products – all this so that we could have something sweet in our mouths!

While touring in the factory, we stopped at tasting points were mountains of chocolate were waiting to be “tasted”. Once we bravely finished the tour, we were taken to a final chocolate eating point where - as if we had not had enough - we were once more offered more chocolate. “Eat as much as you want, this is the final stop” the tour guide said. Oh, and did we listen to her.

-          Lasse and Elina

ABB company day & seminar

On February 14th, we at the Stratos group 2013 had a great opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the leading company in power and automation technologies, ABB, and visit their Helsinki office in Pitäjänmäki. The theme of the day seminar was to introduce Stratos students with the wide operations and functions that ABB has. In addition to Tero Manner, the Vice President, we had Mika Erkkilä, Janne Nieminen as well as Esa Loukola, the heads of several different functions, as our hosts.



Tero Manner giving us an overview on the company

After Tero had welcomed everyone and introduced the agenda of the day, he gave a comprehensive company introduction. He provided numbers and figures to build a wide picture about ABB’s business and the various industries where their products and services are utilized. As the knowledge about ABB’s business in general seems often to be on the level of “something to do with motors and electrics”, we believe all of us learned a lot of new about the company. We also learned that ABB’s equipment is often indirectly connected to our daily life because they stand as the largest supplier of industrial motors and drives, the largest provider of generators to the wind industry, and the largest supplier of power grids worldwide.
Tero pointed out clearly how ABB’s role is underestimated in the media. In the newspapers, only the fancy “start-ups” are stressed. ABB has actually a great success story and they were highly profitable also last year. ABB is a global leader in many areas by operating in approximately 100 countries. Furthermore, they are one of the biggest industrial employers in Finland, operating in over 30 localities. Besides the company introduction, it was really nice that Tero shared us also about his personal background. Surprisingly, Tero was a previous Stratos student from the 90s and thus it was fascinating to hear about his career path.
After hearing about ABB’s business in general, Mika took a deep dive into ABB’s drive business and the recent project they had been dealing with. Mika presented a highly interesting real-time case of how they were able to enhance their service levels. By using a fundamental quality-enhancement mindset, they were able to cut their lead times significantly and hence make their customers even more satisfied. After hearing about the successful “lead-time project”, it was time for a coffee break and excellent shrove buns (laskiaspulla) – yummy!




After the break it was Janne’s turn to give us insight about the Systematic model and toolbox for Product Transfer Projects. During his presentation he showed us how the these projects are planned and followed, what is the role of communication by project leaders and how to optimize the time use of the specialists. Then, it was time for the last presentation of the day: Esa taught us a lot about planning of IT projects and how to evaluate the profitability of these projects. Like all the previous presentations, we perceived the information as very interesting, and again lots of questions and comments were raised during and after the presentation.
After all the presentations, we were unfortunately quite behind with the time schedule and thus there wasn’t a lot of time for an overall discussion at the end. Instead, the ABB team decided to start heading for the last part of the excursion – the factory tour.
First Tero took us to see the facilities where ABB manufactures engines. We saw a lot of impressive machinery and complicated generators etc. Interesting was that ABB rotates some tasks of the workers at the factory, this is done to keep everyone motivated and to avoid too long routines. After Tero’s guided tour it was Janne’s turn. He took us to a building where ABB manufactures drives. First he gave us an interesting demonstration of how a drive works with a simple example that involved an electronic motor and a small red balloon. In the factory we saw some assembly lines and Janne told us about the products, warehouse control and how different jobs are organized.



All in all, we are pretty sure that we can speak for all of us when saying that we enjoyed the visit a lot and it reminded us of the opportunities that ABB, as a truly global company, can offer for ambitious university graduates with technical or business backgrounds. We would all like to thank ABB for offering us the opportunity to learn more about businesses related to power and automation technologies and your way of doing business.

- Lauri, Miina & Joni

Kick-off event at Finpro

Our excited group gathered for the first time at the kick-off event, which was hosted at Finpro's corporate headquarters in Ruoholahti. The event started with everyone introducing themselves and telling a bit about their expectations for the upcoming spring. We have got quite a diverse group of students this year as each of the participants is from a different major at Aalto. Three different Aalto Schools are represented- the schools of  Business, Science and Electrical Engineering! The first Stratos session continued with a brief introduction from the coordinators. Outi Torniainen, the SVP of Communications and Marketing at Finpro, followed with a presentation on the work of Finpro and how they are assisting Finnish companies in their internationalization goals. The interesting presentation raised a lot of discussion about the most common problems or concerns Finnish companies face when entering new markets.

We were also extremely glad to to welcome representatives from Fazer, Maija Hellman and Gaia consulting, Laura Hakala, to our kick off session. They gave us a quick overview on their companies and what kinds of projects students will be working on in their companies. After the successful event at Finpro our group continued to Baana to get to know each other a bit better while sipping some sparkling wine. 

Afterwork at Baana