It’s time for a “radical change” at Nokia, new
company CEO, Stephen Elop emphatically insisted in an internal note to employees, posted Feb. 8 by Engadget and reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. A Jerry
McGuire-style, 1,200-plus-word
manifesto, the document arrives just days before Elop’s Feb. 11 date with
investors in London, where he is scheduled to detail his plans for turning
around the phone maker, which last quarter lost
its long-held title as the world’s
leading smartphone platform to Google’s Android.
In the document, Elop offers an anecdote of a
fisherman forced to choose between the burning platform he’s standing on and
the frigid, dark waters of the North Sea. Circumstances caused by Nokia’s
own poor decisions have put the company in a position, the document suggests,
where it similarly must either do something previously unthinkable or else be
consumed.
“How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us
evolved?” Elop said in the document, continuing:
This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it
has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own
burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to
align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of
misses. We haven’t been delivering innovation fast enough. We’re not
collaborating internally.
Nokia, our platform is burning.
For more, read the eWeek article: Nokia CEO Elop: Company Must Make ‘Radical Change’.
