Keldogs

What Would John Chambers Have Done for Nortel?

I assume you and I both spent quite a bit of time empoyeed at Nortel. My comments were mostly based on my days at Synoptics and Bay Networks - and then in the data world of Nortel. Cisco ate our lunch everyday. Had Andy Ludwig (Synoptic CEO) made the call to follow the Field there would have been no need to merge with Wellfleet (which created Bay). Because of Andy's lack of leadership Cisco waltzed into the layer 2 (IP layer) without a fight. From my perspective Nortel has the same lack of market driven products and innovation. Regarding VoIP, Nortel VoIP solutions are losing greenfield opportunities over the past 12 months - Cisco and Avaya are taking all new opportunities - Norel is winning the upgrade/conversion business. That, in my opinion, is the sign of a company that has lost all relevance in the market place e.g. customer mindshare, ability to build interest and commitment at all levels of the customer coporate ladder... That would not happen in a marketing driven culture - and back to the original point (what would Chamber do), John Chambers would never have let that happen..




On Nov 21 09:37 PM Broken-Parachute wrote:

> I completely agree with your assessment regarding Nortel's fundemental
> lack of marketing expertise. I remember the hard time a certain CMO
> [from Apply] had changing hearts and minds at Nortel with respect
> to real marketing tactics. In the end, he just got the good o'le
> Nortel nodd for his efforts. A true waste of proven talent and a
> major waste of opportunity.
>
> However, I would argue that marketing all be it in a minor part of
> the company at the time was alive and well in the Enterprise Business
> Networks leadship category. Classic examples of Meridian Mail customer
> partnering did a fair job of implementing customer driven features,
> and eventually leading to the only unified messaging application
> with a separate voice/fax message store from email. Which was later
> copied by Avaya and Cisco, long after Nortel dominated marketshare.
> Even the SL-1, Meridian 1 and CS 1000 was largely customer driven
> on the feature side of product development. Still, too much of marketing
> was spees and fees driven in the end.

What Would John Chambers Have Done for Nortel?

Just curious -
What is the total loss in terms of percentage of Market Cap -- Is it possible the NT lost a bigger percentage of it's total than Cisco?


On Nov 25 08:10 PM law1985 wrote:

> NT has lost $8 billion of market cap in the last 12 months, while
> CSCO has lost $80 billion...

What Would John Chambers Have Done for Nortel?

The major change Chambers would have brought to Nortel is a cultural one – being marketing. One thing Chamber's knows is that the best technical solution is NOT needed to be the winner.. Just as Ray Norda knew how to propel Novell over the technically superior Banyon. Chamber’s is well aware that while Cisco does not have technically superior gear – he has created the Cisco image - everyone knows the name, students at high schools, colleges and trade schools are being taught the CLI and technology - and created the "no one gets fired choosing Cisco" mantra. John did that while competing with companies offering a more scalable and extensible architecture.

The fall of Nortel and it’s gene pool (which includes Synoptics, WellFleet and BayNetworks) were all engineering driven companies, all of which have/had the failed philosophy that the best technical solution wins..
While I agree with many comments of what changes are needed inside Nortel –I believe Chamber's biggest challenge and ultimate victory would happen by making Nortel in to a Marketing company... creating a culture where customer requirements actually take precedence of some technical Phd buried in the labs and being out of touch with the customer base.. I have two examples – 1. Wellfleet routers while technically superior to Cisco did not have a CLI – the techs rebelled and always purchased Cisco. 2. Synoptics tech founder was bent on ATM and refused the sales departments (screaming) requests to put an FDDI connector on a 10mbit enet swich – all because ATM was the technical direction of the day --- Two classic examples where technology was allowed by CEO to ignore the market…. Chambers would not have made that fatal mistake..