NK Cables has an interesting history, which involves mergers, acquisitions, and divestments. The vice president of NK Cables emphasizes that knowledge about this development is crucial if the challenges related to sales channel strategies in Eastern Europe are to be understood. NK Cables was established in 1912 (under the name Finnish Braiding Works Limited) to manufacture cable products. However, in 1967, it merged with Nokia Ltd. and became a division of Nokia. Furthermore, under Nokia’s ownership it expanded by acquiring other national cable producers such as Maillefer, the Swiss cable machinery producer, in 1987. However, in the beginning of the 1990s Nokia made a large strategic decision to focus only on mobile phones and networks. Hence, in 1996 Nokia Cables was sold to NKF holding of the Netherlands and in 1999 this entity was merged with Draka Holding of the Netherlands. Hence, a Dutch-Finnish cable producer, NK Cables, was formed. The net sales of NK Cables in 2002 was over 200 million euros. A high proportion of the company’s products are supplied to the global telecommunication sector. Throughout this period the Eastern European markets have been important to NK Cables, and so it was natural that even in the new company, NK Cables would be responsible for them.