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Thursday 12 April 2007

Arnora @ Mikkeli

By Markus on Thursday 12 April 2007, 14:23

Innovative and growth seeking companies can really be found from anywhere! This was once again proved when we went to Mikkeli today.

During our stay we had couple of very interesting meetings with CEOs of the local ICT companies. Mikkeli area has lately put a lot of effort in the promotion of local research and business life – and the results are visible!

A couple of words about Mikkeli

The City of Mikkeli was founded in 1838. However the history of the Mikkeli area reaches way back to the beginning of the 11th century. Already then it was known as an active market place and as a centre of the eastern Finland. In the 1500s, the place was named after Saint Michael.

Mikkeli possesses significant role in Finland’s history. During the World War II the Finnish Defence Forces’ headquarters were located there and it is still possible to feel the importance and presence of honoured Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim at the city.

- Jukka -

Thursday 29 March 2007

Oulu the Mobile City of Finland 29.3.2007

By Markus on Thursday 29 March 2007, 10:00

Morning was beautiful and sunny. A little bit cold as the ice has not yet left from the sea close bye but started to get warm during the day. I woke up around 06:30 AM and packed up all my baggages before having a breakfast. Again I have to say that the new Scandic hotel is good and everything was working.Ok, WLAN was not working well but that is not the point when you try to get some rest after a long day.

Schedule for the day was like this:

06:30 AM wake up
07:30 AM breakfast
08:30 AM sign out from hotel (gave them negative feedback regarding WLAN)
09:00 AM first meeting
11:00 AM second meeting
12:30 PM third meeting including lunch (after that I was starting to loose control of my schedule unfortunately. Had so nice time talking with the lady.)
01:45 PM fourth meeting (and again schedule problems)
03:30 PM last meeting for the day.
04:30 PM to the airport of Oulu
05:30 PM Check-in to the flight
06:30 Flight should have left…

At 06:00 PM they announced at the airport that the flight was delayed due to the malfunction. No more information except that the next flight leaves at 08:20 PM. Thank god I had some work to do so I finished those before having a glass of red wine while watching recorded tv series from my laptop.

I arrived home at 09:30 PM. It was a nice trip and I will do that again gladly.

- Markus

Wednesday 28 March 2007

Oulu the Mobile City of Finland 28.3.2007

By Markus on Wednesday 28 March 2007, 17:44

Finally my trip to Oulu has started. Going to meet a lot of companies interested in internationalization of their business and sparring of their business. Schedule for the day one was like this:

04:00 AM get up from the bed.
05:00 AM taxi to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport
06:35 AM flight to Oulu
07:30 AM arrive to Oulu airport
08:00 AM first meeting
10:00 AM second meeting
12:00 Noon third meeting including lunch
01:30 PM Days last meeting
03:00 PM Check-in to a hotel (Scandic Oulu was very nice)
03:30 PM Check emails and do some work
04:30 PM Jogging to clear my head after the days meetings
06:00 PM Dinner and a glass of wine
07:30 PM Again some work and talking with my daughter and wife
09:00 PM fell a sleep while watching tv

Overall very nice meetings and people. Would like to thank the people who I met and lets keep in touch. Over and out for the day one of my trip.

- Markus

Friday 16 February 2007

Beware of a Potential Customer & Hide Your Contact Info!

By Markus on Friday 16 February 2007, 13:18

There is a newly published research done by MediaCom about the consumers’ behaviour when they are looking for companies’ or service providers’ contact information. This research illustrates more than clearly that company’s presence in the Internet is absolutely essential these days. In my opinion the case is not just about being there, but also offering correct and up to date information in a right form at a right time – of course not forgetting that one must also look attractive!

Where Finnish Consumers Seek Companies Contact Information

The research shows that 52% of Finnish consumers looking for contact information access the company’s home pages directly or look the Internet address first from a search engine. Hello! That’s already over half of all consumers! To top this there are also additional 26% of consumers that seek the information from the on-line directory services. Together this means that 78% of Finnish consumers look for the contact information from the Internet.

I’d say that now it is the time for all of us not to look into mirror but into our web sites. Is all information there up to date? Is it at the right place? Can the visitor quickly and easily find your essential contact information? How about faces? Who should they contact? And please no, do not answer me that your company offers ‘a quick and easy-to-use web form for contacting’!!!

Jukka

PS: Should your company need assistance in figuring out what’s important and what you should tell to your customers, please do not hesitate to contact Arnora. All our contact information is freely available at our web-site: http://www.arnora.com/

Saturday 10 February 2007

Winter in Tallinn

By Markus on Saturday 10 February 2007, 11:40

I’ve just been in meetings with some Estonian companies discussing about possible co-operation between them and Arnora. Naturally we are offering them internationalization services and local presence in Finnish and Singaporean markets. In my opinion the executives of the Estonian ICT companies are often very open minded and easy to work with – well of course the geographical proximity of Finland and Estonia as well as the similarity of the cultures will also help.

Above you can see a photo of the Tallinn’s Old Town’s skyline taken from the 24th floor of the Radisson SAS hotel. Estonians have taken a great care in restoring the Old Town to it’s past glory. In Estonia the contrast between the old and the new is striking. The old medieval buildings stand right next to the new high rising glass and steel sky scrapers.

Jukka

Wednesday 13 December 2006

Ohoy ! Man the Battlestations !

By Markus on Wednesday 13 December 2006, 16:34

Today I had a business meeting in a very strange place. Old gunship which is restored as a conference ship now. Extremely nice decorations with a hint of strange feeling because of the missing cannons ;-) Anyway the ship was nicely done and looks very beautiful inside. If you want to rent it for corporate spirit healing cruise please do check contact information from www.arnora.com and we will forward your request to the owner of the ship.

Cheers !

Tuesday 18 July 2006

Stockholm calling…

By Markus on Tuesday 18 July 2006, 08:56

Today in Stockholm. Got a meeting with swedish company because they have a software/service solution which is needed in Asia. I am exited to meet with the company CEO and discuss with him how they see Asia as their next possibility to expand. Software as a service is quite wanted at the moment in Asia. You do not need to invest too much to start using it.