If you ever accidentally drop your mobile phone and it goes into pieces, you will find a green circuit board inside. This is when Mr Martti Ranin, a Finn, comes into the story. He is a vice president of Aspocomp Group Oyj, a Finnish company that manufactures high quality printed circuit board (PCB) products.
Martti Ranin
Since 2005 Martti Ranin works in Aspocomp. He moved to Thailand in the summer of 2006, but this is not his first time in Asia. He has been around the region for nine years, started in Singapore at the end of 1996, then to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Beijing.
“I stayed in Vietnam for over three years, the longest stay without a move in last 15 years”, Martti recalls. “It was a very nice time with many good friends, with whom we still keep contact.”
Martti Ranin’s professional background is in Sales and Marketing Consulting, where he worked for 12 years. “I felt that it was time for me to rather do things than just advice and consult others to do them.”
In 1995 Martti Ranin joined Nokia Mobile Phones. He had worked with telecommunication clients before and that was the line of business he had followed very closely. He ended up working with Nokia for over eight years.
“That was interesting time in rapidly growing Asian markets”, says Martti.
“Now I’m on the other side of the table dealing with printed circuit boards for our international customers, and Nokia is one of them.”
Aspocomp
Aspocomp has a relatively long history in printed circuit boards. The Finnish company started already in 1965 to build them and as early as in 1980’s it began to provide printed circuit boards for the first mobile phones ever.
“We have several factories, two in Finland, one in China, one in Thailand. The new one is being built in India at Chennai”, says Martti
“I’m looking after our Handheld Device Sales globally. In other words, my customers are companies, who use printed circuit boards in such portable devices as mobile phones, MP3 players, cameras, GPS devices and notebooks.”
In May 2007 Aspocomp opened a new Sales Office in Taipei and there are more offices to be opened in the future in the Asia Pacific to serve the local customers in the region.
Mobile Business
“I moved to Asia because this is where the business is. Our head office is in Finland, but most of our business is done here.” says Martti Ranin.
The mobile phone business in Asia is booming especially in China, India and South East Asian countries. Today India has the highest growth of all mobile phone markets.
The Competition
“In Aspocomp, we are focused on PCBs (Printed Circuit Board) but especially on HDI (High Density Interconnection) PCBs,” explains Martti.
“Our products are advanced PCBs, there is more accuracy and they are trickier to produce. Our factory is not a basic PCB factory. It is more complicated to build our kind of PCBs and that is where our competitive edge is.”
Life on the Airplane
“Bangkok is an excellent hub”, says Martti Ranin.
“I travel a lot in the area and the connections are good in Bangkok. And on top of that it is less than 10 hours away from Finland. So Bangkok is perfect, I can take a direct flight to India, China, Singapore or Taipei.”
Life in Bangkok
Martti Ranin, 49 years, is originally from Helsinki. He lives in Bangkok with his Finnish wife and two daughters.
“My daughters are seven and eleven and they study at the ISB, the International School of Bangkok. We have no plans to move anywhere. We are happy in Thailand. People are friendly and the cuisine is excellent.”
“Bangkok is also a paradise for golfing. There are so many golf courses in the area, but in the past two months I have traveled so much that I haven’t even touched my clubs. But tomorrow I plan to play. Our tee time is at 5.30 in the morning so I can be at the office by nine am.” that is how much he loves to golf.
