Nokia's New Home in Romania

The phonemaker is rushing to set up shop close to its Eastern European customers

by Jack Ewing

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The Transylvanian sheep pasture hadn't seen much action since the departure of the Roman whose ruined villa was recently unearthed nearby. But now, with handset maker Nokia (NOK) tearing up the field to build a factory, the modern world is coming to this corner of Romania at a speed that amazes even John Guerry, the 36-year-old Texan in charge of the plant. "Every time I come it looks different," Guerry says, stooping to pet a stray dog the workers have named Nokia.

Wearing a bright green safety vest, Guerry leads visitors across muddy ground toward the gray, corrugated metal walls of the factory. Less than five months after work began, the plant's exterior is nearly complete. Inside, specialists have already installed a bank of computers to track the flow of phone parts. In March the factory outside the city of Cluj-Napoca will begin shipping handsets around Europe and Africa.

Nokia chose Cluj, home of a well-regarded technical university, in part because of its ample supply of engineering graduates willing to work for less than a quarter of what Western Europeans make. The plant will come on line shortly before Nokia closes a factory in Bochum, Germany, which Nokia says has become too expensive. But low wages alone won't make the Romania plant competitive. To ensure that Nokia's $88 million investment pays off, Guerry will import the company's vaunted supply-chain expertise to a region linked to the outside world by a puny airport and a bumpy two-lane highway that snakes through the nearby Carpathian Mountains.

His challenge is to teach local workers to be as productive and exacting about quality as their counterparts in Brazil, China, and India. And he has to know enough about Romanian culture to create a workplace where skilled employees will want to stick around. Other multinationals such as St. Louis-based Emerson (EMR) are also building factories in the region, so there is sure to be competition for the best people.

But if it all works, Nokia will extend its dominance of the global handset market. The company had a 38% global share in the third quarter of 2007, vs. 14.5% for No. 2 Samsung. Part of that commanding position, Nokia managers maintain, stems from the company's strategy of manufacturing closer to customers. Competitors such as Motorola (MOT) make most of their handsets in Asia—a disadvantage, Nokia believes. "When Motorola can't react as quickly as we can, we gain market share," says Guerry, who earlier in his career managed a Motorola plant in Texas.

QUEUING UP AT 6 A.M.

Finding willing workers for the new factory won't be a problem. Cluj, a city of 400,000, is still emerging from the poverty left behind by one of Eastern Europe's most repressive communist dictatorships. Sparkling dealerships offer BMWs and Audis to the newly rich, but on the streets, forlorn-looking young men peddle homemade wooden coat hangers. Although official unemployment was 3.1% in November, many people earn as little as $180 per month at local enterprises. They are eager to work for a multinational offering chances for training and advancement.

In fact, citizens are nearly euphoric at the prospect of joining the planet's biggest maker of handsets. "Everybody has been asking me: Do you have any contacts? Do you know where to apply?'" says Bettina Binder, a 27-year-old regional manager for a cosmetics retailer in Cluj. At a Nokia-sponsored job fair in June, hopefuls from across Romania began queuing at 6 a.m. Eventually 8,000 applicants showed up, twice what Nokia expected and far more than it will ever employ. Early on, Nokia expects to hire about 500 people, a number that will gradually increase to 3,500 by the end of 2009.

Still, foreign companies in other emerging markets such as China and India have learned that finding and retaining skilled workerss isn't easy. Wages rise quickly, and workers don't hesitate to sell new expertise to a higher bidder.