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!