Mika has been working in telecommunications and IT filed for more than 20 years. He started in Ascom Fintel in Finland responsible for the sales of telecommunication products and systems. Ascom Fintel is a part of Swiss Ascom Holding.
In 1994 he joined Tecnomen and moved to Hong Kong where he worked as General Manager of Tecnomen Hong Kong until 1998.
After a short period in Elcoteq Asia Ltd, Mika started as a Sales Director of Comptel Communications Hong Kong in 2001 and finally after 12 years in Hong Kong in December 2006 he moved to Kuala Lumper together with his wife Riikka and his three years old Samuel.
“KL is much better than Hong Kong for the family. There’s more space and it’s much more relax than Hong Kong,” says Mika
Working in Asia
The medium size company’s office in KL is the regional head quarter of Comptel in Asia where other smaller offices are in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Beijing, Sydney and Delhi.
“We control the sales and delivery activity from here, now we have around 60 employees working for Comptel in KL.” says Mika
Mika’s job is to keep in touch of the sales activity in the Asia pacific region.
“Working in KL is quite different than in Hong Kong,” says Mika.
“Everything needed to be done immediately there. It is much quicker than in KL where it is more relaxing. People are not that busy all the time here.”
Working with the customers in Asia is also different than in Europe according to Mika. He said in Europe customers think that the technical part of the solution is very important but in Asia what matters are the relationship and what kind of references you have.
Getting to know Comptel
The company offers a wide range of leading-edge software solutions and customer services for service providers worldwide. Comptel solution portfolio includes convergent mediation and charging solutions as well as automated service fulfillment solutions.
Comptel’s professional services aim at ensuring customer satisfaction in line with the customers’ changes needs. Sales, Consultation Services, Delivery Services and Support Services as well as Training Services are an integral part of Comptel’s service suite. Comptel User Group provides a contact forum for Comptel’s customers and partners
Comptel in Asia
“We’ve been here since the late 90’s and since then we’ve been expanding gradually. Now we have a very good customer based in Asia.” explains Mika
Some of Comptel’s well-known customers are Bharti (India), Beijing Mobile (China), FarEasTone (Taiwan), AIS and Dtac (Thailand), Vodafone in Australia and DIGI and Celecom for Malaysia.
However according to Mika there is more and more competition is this area of business especially in the vendor segment.
Life in Asia
One of Mika’s favourite things to do when he has time is scuba diving. He’s been diving for over 20 years and still loving it. Once a year he tries to go diving at his favourite place in Phuket and Similan Islands.
He normally goes back to Finland once a quarter for business and once a year in summer with his family. They’re planning to go back home at the end of this July.
When he was asked how much longer he plans to stay in Malaysia he said he has to wait for at least two or three years to decide because he doesn’t want to relocate much while his son’s growing up. Mika also mentioned that his wife is keeping herself busy in the Finn community in KL and often took their child to participate the event.
