Information about the growing markets in Asia is helping Finnish companies to make important strategic decisions. As part of their coursework, students at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand are collecting data on the Southeast Asian telecom markets. This research is being conducted for Qvantel Business Solutions Oy, which is seeking to take its mission "Delivering your vision" to the Asian markets.
Asia represents a significant growth opportunity for us and will ensure that we are not dependent on a single market", says Ilkka Aura, CEO of Qvantel Corporation. Qvantel Business Solutions Oy is aiming to establish itself in the Southeast Asian markets.
At the moment the company has operations in Finland, Sweden, Spain and India. It opened a sales office in Singapore some time ago, and sees Asia as a natural region to establish new business contacts.
"We have a development centre in Hyderabad, India, with 40 employees, which will facilitate our expansion into the Asian markets. We are setting up a unit in India focusing on operator invoicing competence, and this will also mean additional work for our unit in Jyväskylä", Aura explains.
Qvantel Business Solutions Oy is based in Jyväskylä and specialized in customer relationship management and billing systems for telecom operators. The other units of Qvantel Corporation are Qvantel Software Solutions, which provides product development services for terminal device manufacturers, and Qvantel Innovations, which is a product development company. Qvantel Corporation's customers include wireless operators, computer hardware and mobile phone manufacturers, and network device vendors.
Ilkka Aura says that Qvantel particularly wants the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) students to collect information on the markets in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. AIT is an international university based in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand. It has 1 500 full-time students from almost 40 countries.
"Information about local legislation, competitive conditions, pricing and the activities of telecom operators, for example, will help us to assess whether there is an opportunity for our company to establish itself in these countries", he states.
"The market research being done for Qvantel is an initial pilot project, and we are testing how effective it is. The idea is that local students at AIT would be available to our companies when they want to determine whether there is potential for them to operate in the Asian markets", explains Kari Halttunen, ICT Development Director, Jyväskylä Innovation Ltd.
Jyväskylä Regional Development Company Jykes Ltd and Jyväskylä Innovation Ltd are aiming to create an effective standard model to help local companies that are looking to enter the Southeast Asian markets to get the necessary information about business opportunities. This standard model would be created in collaboration with the Asian Institute of Technology, the University of Jyväskylä and, possibly, JAMK University of Applied Sciences. "We believe that local students can give us the best insight into market conditions", says Tero Rautiainen, Project Manager at Jykes.
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QVANTEL CORPORATION
- Qvantel Corporation came into being with the merger of Qvantel Oy and Starnet Systems Oy in the first half of 2008. It employs around 150 IT professionals and its target turnover for 2008 is approx. EUR 10 million. Around 60 employees are based at the Jyväskylä unit.
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Photo: Qvantel's Jyväskylä unit trains employees for the company's Indian office in Hyderabad. Ilkka Aura in discussion with Ashok Jardhan (left) and Tarun Sharma.
Words by Timo Sillanpää Photos by Petteri Kivimäki