Managing Nokia’s R&D in China
Ramalingam Hariharan
Country Manager
Nokia Research Center, Beijing
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Why are we here?
• China is the world’s largest mobile market by subscribers and
the most dynamic one.
• China is a strategic country market for Nokia. China is Nokia’s
second largest market in 2004. Nokia is already No. one
supplier of handset in China and the leading supplier of 3G
systems in the greater China area
• China is one of the 12 global R&D bases in the world. Our
R&D operation supports both Nokia’s local and global markets
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Beijing Product Creation - From Local to
Global
• Beijing Product Creation (Beijing PC) was formed in
September of 1999
• Initial purpose was to expand Nokia‘s capabilities to develop
and localize terminal products for Nokia in China and Asia
• Now it is a key R&D site in the global Mobile Phones Business
Group
• Designs, develops and delivers mobile devices for global
market
• The ability to deliver China-specific products
• More than 40% of globally shipped volume in Mobile Phones
Business Group came from products designed and developed
by Beijing PC.
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Nokia Research Center, Beijing
• Established 1998
• We do world-class research in our long term research
projects and contribute to the local business through
accumulated expertise
• Highly educated staff
• 60 % hold master’s degree
• 30 % hold PhD degree
• Based on local talents
• Over 90 % of staff are Chinese nationals
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Focus
• Research on :
• Beyond 3G radio, core and IP networks and their
performance
• Multimedia Technologies & Applications
• Research on Asian user interfaces
• Chinese mobile applications and services
• Technology exploration in China and other APAC
countries
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Wide Range of University Cooperation
• Research cooperation with Chinese top level universities
• Funding for university research
• Research subcontracting
• Scholarship, fellowship, innovation funds, equipments,
conference participantion sponsoring, etc.
• Knowledge transfer, technical training
• Symbian course delivery
• Joint national or EU projects
• Academy info exchanges
• Intern positions
• Joint Post-doc program
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Learnings from Nokia’s Research
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Resource or Research Center?
• Chinese research staff is still very cheap,
• Person cost with overhead is only half of that in US or
Europe
• However, price is not only that matters – Chinese staff cannot
be used only as a resource pool or resource extension
•  Well articulated strategy is important. What is the purpose
of research unit in China?
• Nokia’s Research Strategy in China:
• Much of the work have to be closely linked to Chinese
technologies, business or products in China
• Large enough portion of work made in global projects to
ensure competence creation and transfer in China
• Use created competencies to contribute to local activities
• Use local researchers to study China related topics
•
•
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Natural to do in China
Difficult to do from the global
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Learnings
• Language/Cultural Issues
• Difficulties in communications between Chinese and
colleagues in the west due to language and cultural
differences
• Because of above reasons it is difficult to arrange efficient
guidance from the global
• Guidance cannot be given outside China  Guidance from
China
• Risks with IPR
• China is a tough environment what comes to intellectual
property rights protection
• In fact over the years since our R&D came to China, Nokia
has not experienced any major R&D IPR protection
problems.
• Chinese government regulators and local companies are
starting to follow internationally accepted practice when it
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Inventions and Publications
• Researchers are
encouraged to prepare
inventions and scientific
publications
• In average one patent
application made per
researcher annually
• The quality of inventions
and publications is kept
high through tight selection
process
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A Recent Example of Achievements
• World’s 1st WCDMA High Speed Uplink Packet Access
(HSUPA) demonstration system
• HSUPA research in China started at 2001
• Implementation of demonstration system started at 2003
• Demo was ready in February 2005 and was shown in Cannes
3GSM congress and CTIA Wireless Conference in New
Orleans
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Summary
• Huge and dynamic market in China
• Develop and localize terminal products to Chinese markets
• Ability to deliver China specific products
• Have R&D capability for product validation, customer care and
type approval that are always done locally
• Do research in areas both important in this region and topics of
global interest as well.
• Understand research directions and new technologies in China
• Use Chinese talents to research technologies relevant to
China
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