Technology >> CEO Interviews >> February 12, 2001

Jarmo Kalliola – Aldata Solution Oyj (ald1v)

JARMO KALLIOLA, born 1953, has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of software product house Aldata Solution Oyj since 1997. He has had a long and successful career within the IT-industry in Finland and other Nordic countries. In 1985 he started his own IT company, Data Check Oy, specialising in retail software which soon became market leader in retail software in Finland. After three years of entrepreneurship he sold his company to Alma Media Group and continued as President of his previously owned company. Aldata was successfully listed to the Helsinki Exchanges in 1999 after only two years of Mr Kalliola's presidency. He was able to change the course of the company from operationally unprofitable domestic software maker to a profitable international software product house with state of the art products in both conventional as well as m-commerce and e-commerce. Mr Kalliola is also a member of Finpro's (formerly Finnish Foreign Trade Association) Supervisory Body. Aldata is an innovative software product house designing and marketing data systems for conventional retailing, software for m-commerce and e-commerce, and data collection systems for logistics, production and access control systems. Its strategy is based on its own software development, focusing on selected market segments, exploitation of Internet technologies and controlled growth. It operates in Finland, Sweden, Norway, France and Germany where it has 455 employees. Aldata has software installations in 38 countries. Aldata's net sales in 2000 totalled approximately EUR 50,7 million and its expected sales growth is 55-65 % for year 2001. Profile
TWST: Can we start with a quick corporate profile of Aldata: what are

its core businesses?

Mr. Kalliola: Aldata is a software product house. We make software for

the retail industry,