Follows customer-facing re-org also geared toward 5G sales cycle
Nokia continues to reorganize its business and management structures ahead of an anticipated increase in 5G product sales in the 2019-2020 timeframe. In the latest, the infrastructure vendor is essentially combining is fixed and mobile network business units, a move that mirrors the network convergence that marks the development and ongoing commercialization of 5G.
Earlier this month, Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri laid out the move of Rick Corker to become president of customer operations for the Americas region and Federico Guillén to the role of president of customer operations for EMEA and APAC. After 15 years with the company, Ashish Chowdhary, current chief customer operations officer, will make an exit at the end of the year; he’s taking a job at Apple as head of operations in India.
With the latest shuffle, announced Nov. 22, former mobile networks head Marc Rouanne is leaving the company. His mobile group, along with fixed networks group, is being combined into the new Access Networks Division. Those changes are effective Jan. 1, however Nokia hasn’t named a new head of the combined group. Tommi Uitto was immediately made president of the mobile business.
Suri said, “Nokia has a unique advantage in the 5G era with its end-to-end portfolio. By creating a single Access Networks organization that includes both fixed and mobile, we can improve our customer focus, simplify our management structure, and more efficiently leverage our full portfolio.”
To that “customer focus” point, Suri said earlier this month during a quarterly earnings call that 2019 and 2020 would provide a “clear path” better performance “as the 5G super-cycle takes hold.”
In a statement on the earlier shuffle, he said, “As we enter the 5G era, extreme customer focus is a must. The changes we are announcing today will ensure that we continue to have the senior management capacity necessary for superb customer relationships in a world of increasing speed and complexity.”
