Nokia regroups to turn up the heat

Behind the seemingly mild-mannered, Finnish face of Nokia Corp. lies the heart of a crafty predator.
The company has seen the markets of the future and it plans to be organizationally more nimble to pounce on opportunity as it arises-or as its innovations and forward momentum create those opportunities.
Nokia announced it will create three main units in its device business: devices, services and software and markets. Wall Street gave Nokia’s stock an upward bump in response this morning before the stock lost some ground to $28.59 per share by mid-afternoon.
The services and software unit reflects Nokia’s growing focus on Internet-based services as well as enterprise solutions, while the markets unit will focus on supply chains, sales channels and marketing, according to the company. From Jan. 1, 2008, onward, Nokia will report its financials under two segments: devices and services as well as Nokia Siemens Networks.
A Nokia spokesperson was not immediately available to provide more detail on the news.
The company said that the devices unit will be led by Kai Oistamo, who currently leads Nokia’s mobile phones business group. Niklas Savander, now head of technology platforms, will lead the services and software unit. Anssi Vanjoki, currently leader of Nokia’s multimedia business group, will lead the new markets unit. Mary McDowell, leader of the enterprise solutions business group, will become chief development officer at the corporation.
Tero Ojanpera, currently the company’s CTO, will undertake “business responsibility” for entertainment and communities services in services and software.
The reorganization was touted as an improvement to the company’s efficiency and time to market. But Nokia also emphasized that the added focus on Internet services would be important to its offering of “complete solutions”-probably a reflection of the company’s ambitions beyond device manufacturing to a role as provider of content and services.
Whether the restructuring will in fact bring Nokia the business it avidly seeks remains to be seen-and likely will be parsed for who’s up and who’s down in the company and what it means for competitors-but the company appears to be taking advantage of its market-leading status to reorganize for the future.
CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo just marked one year in his new role. And the reorganization comes at a time when its next closest rival, Motorola Inc., will need as much as a year to recover its footing, though on a device-by-device basis, the Finnish giant faces plenty of aggressive competition.