Partnering Nokia is a jackpot for any Pilot Fish Company but Golla wanted more…

The success story of this little Pilot Fish Company from Finland starts with business decision made by CEO Petri  Kähkönen in the beginning of this century. That was to move from consumer electronics accessories business into portable electronics accessories business. In plain English, they switched from producing CD-racks into making bags for mobile phones, laptops and mp3 players. This was a million dollar decision for two reasons: first of all the portable device market started to grow immensely during these years and one of the most attractive partner in this business, Finnish Nokia was just around the corner.

Golla started up as a sub-contractor to Nokia but is now selling accessories under its own brand in more than 100 countries.

Soon Golla became a subcontractor to Nokia benefiting from its vast growth in both terms of  geographical reach and sales volume. Although the co-operation with Nokia was mutually lucrative, management realized that this was the unique opportunity to establish its own brand. As Golla used the same retail channels than Nokia, breaking up did not hurt Golla too much. The brand was named Golla after the location of its first production facility, Kolla in Finland.

This story proves that successful Pilot Fish Strategy enables company to make it on its own if it chooses to launch its own brand. Golla did handsome EUR 28 million turnover in 2009 and this was generated only by personnel of 60. Golla sells its products through retailers in over 100 countries and has offices in Finland, Germany, France, Japan, China and United States.

But this case also shows two other aspects often present with Pilot Fish Companies. First is former experience on the field. Golla already was in consumer electronics accessory business before moving to portable device accessory business. So it did not started out from the blank sheet but was on a good position to see how its business sector is evolving. The second is closeness and relations to its Shark Company to be. Both Nokia and Golla are from Finland. It would have been probably considerably more difficult for Golla to approach Motorola, e.g.  So having an attractive partner in close range adds to the possibility for a great partnership. More about Golla www.golla.com .