Nokia - Fostering Innovation

The history of Nokia can be traced back to the year 1865, when, Fredrik Idestam, a mining engineer, established a forest industry enterprise on the banks of the river Nokia in South-Western Finland to manufacture paper. The enterprise was called the Nokia Company.

Later, in 1898, Carl Henrik Lampen, a shopkeeper and J.E. Segerberg, an engineer, set up the Finnish Rubber Works Ltd. (FRW) to manufacture rubber and associated chemicals. In 1912, Konstantin Wikstrom, an engineer, set up the Finnish Cable Works (FCW) to manufacture electrical cables for lighting purposes. These 3 companies were merged in 1967 to form the Nokia Corporation.

During the early 1900s, the FRW grew, and in 1922, it bought a majority stake in the FCW which was then in the midst of a financial crisis. The 3 companies then started working in cooperation and managed to capture market leadership in their respective areas. Talks of integrating the 3 companies through a merger began surfacing at board meetings from the early 1930s. This however, met with stiff opposition from auditors and lawyers who rejected such a move on the grounds that it was not in accordance with corporate bylaws. Consequently, the board voted against the merger in 1937. The issue emerged again only in the 1960s, when the Nokia Company began moving towards the technology sector.