In this first edition of the “The story of” segment we are gonna have a little look at the story behind Nokia, Diesel and Adidas. Instead of the in depth stories seen other places we will keep it short and simple.
Enjoy!

NOKIA
This finnish corporation has grown and grown, since its start way back in 1865 when it was founded by Fredrik Idestam.
Nokia is today the worlds largest manufacturer of cellphones with its 126 000 employees (2009).
Founder Idestam was a mining engineer who started the whole business off by manufacturing paper.
In 1871 the company was made into a share company with help from his close friend, Leo Mechelin, and also given the name it still has today, the Nokia Company.
The name comes from the town where Idestam had built his second mill, the small town of Nokia, named after the river Nokianvirta that flowed through the town.
After Idestam retired from the company management in 1896, Mechelin became chairman and after selling some shares he finally got to realise his big dream for the company, which was to enter electricity generation.
From around 1898 and into the 1900s two other companies were founded by other people and these became parts of the growing Nokia business bringing in a rubber company and a cables/electronics company.
In 1988 Nokian tires formed its own company, and in the 1990s Nokia divested itself of every part of the company that was outside of the telecomunication business to focus entirely on that segment.

Sources: www.wikipedia.org & www.nokia.com

DIESEL

This fairly young company was founded by Italian Renzo Rosso. After his graduation in 1975 from an industrial textilemanufacturing school he joined forces with several other manufacturers of the same region and in 1978 they founded the “Genius Group”. They created several succesful brands widely known still to this day, whereas Diesel is the best known one. Renzo took complete control over Diesel in 1985 after buying out the other manufacturers. It was after that the brand startedits remarkable growth. In 1996 Rosso received the prize of Best Italian Company of the Year and he was also in 1997 nominated for Entrepreneur ofthe Year. After this he has received and been nominated for several awards, including Man of the Year and one of the  100 most likely people to shape the new millenium.

Today the company that originally manufactured jeans aimed at a young group also makes beachwear, fragrances and many otherproducts related to these.
As of 2009 the company had 2200 employees worldwide.

Sources: www.wikipedia.org & www.diesel.com

ADIDAS
German-based Adidas is the biggest manufacturer of sportswear in Europe, and the second biggest in the world, after american NIKE.
The brand is known for its “Three stripes” logo, which actually was bough from a Finnish company called Karhu Sports back in the 1950s.
The story behind the success though, is a story of brother rivalry.
Adolf aka Adi Dassler started producing his own sports shoes in his mothers home after his return from WW 1, followed by brother Rudolf(Rudi) joining the company in 1924. The times were challenging for the brothers who at times had to use power from a bicycle to operate their equiment because of the powersupply of the town they lived in being unreliable.
After Adi drove all the way to Berlin for the olympics in 1936 and miraculously convinced Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals, to wear their shoes, everyone wanted them.
Then after world war two after a serious of events and misunderstandings, the brothers split up in 1947.
Adi named his company Adidas(short for his first and last name) and brother Rudi formed the company Ruda, later renamed to the company we today know as Puma.
As bad as some people look at the fact that the brothers splitting up, theres also a chance they wouldnt have gotten that big without the constant rivalry between the brothers who kept pushing each other to make new and better products.

Adidas has today around 40 000 employees worldwide.