Nokia Reorg Actually “Job Rotation”
by John Paczkowski
Posted on October 16, 2009 at 10:27 AM PT
Nokia describes the management overhaul it’s undertaking as a common “job rotation,” but coming as it does after its lousy third-quarter financial performance and a worrisome decline in smart-phone market share, it seems perhaps just a little bit more.
This morning the Finnish mobile phone giant tapped Rick Simonson, currently its chief financial officer, as head of its handset division. And the company named Timo Ihamuotila, currently global head of sales, CFO.
While Simonson’s move from CFO to head of Nokia’s mobile phone business might seem a bit odd, analysts say it could be just what the company needs. “Simonson has been in the business for years,” Swedbank Securities analyst Jan Ihrfelt told Forbes. “He knows the company quite well, has the financial skills and the skills of a good communicator to make people in the company excited about new goals.”
And that’s clearly something Nokia (NOK) needs. For while the company is holding its ground in the broader mobile phone business, it’s losing it in smart phones, the fastest-growing segment of the market. As I noted yesterday, Nokia’s share of the smart-phone market slipped to 35 percent from 41 percent in its latest quarter, a grim reminder of just how poorly the company’s flagship smart phones are faring in their battle with iPhone maker Apple (AAPL) and BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIMM).
Said Ihrfelt: “Nokia hasn’t been as quick as others in catching up with trends in the market and in bringing phones to consumers. One would expect a player the size of Nokia to have a product that competes with the iPhone, but that hasn’t been the case.”
Not yet, anyway. But that may soon change. A few weeks back, Nokia hired John Martin, former vice president of iPhone and Mac Internet Services at Apple to oversee development of new devices based on its Maemo platform.
Comments
Every time Nokia fails, it goes through reorg, they just rotate the job but do not try to get new talent from the market, same old people keep doing same old mistake and company never succeed.
they need to change it everything in one time and do it right, there is no time for trial and error here…Nokia…
Posted by Ritesh Dhandha at October 16th, 2009 at 11:46 amdo you best and recover