When New Delhi-born Rajeev Suri took charge as the CEO of Nokia’ networks division in 2009, he had a huge task of turning around the company. Suri undertook a series of decisions aimed at focussing on just the mobile wireless network business.

Five years later, after embarking on a transformational journey, Suri took the business to new heights. After selling its mobile phone business to Microsoft, Nokia Corporation named him as its CEO and President in 2015. The appointment was seen as a reward for Suri’s contribution in turning around Nokia's telecom networks business globally.

The Finnish company announced on Monday that Rajeev Suri would step down in August after six years at the helm. He will be replaced by Pekka Lundmark, who is currently president and chief executive of Fortum, a Finnish energy firm.

Suri, man with a vision

In Suri’s interactions with BusinessLine soon after he got the full mandate of running Nokia Corp, he came across as a man with a vision. In an interview on September 2014, when asked about his focus areas, Suri had said, “We believe Nokia and its businesses will be deeply embedded in a world where connectivity will expand massively, linking almost all people as well as hundreds of billions of physical objects, from cars, home appliances to wearables and industrial equipment. And where billions of objects are not just connected, but adaptive, intelligent and automated in ways that will improve our everyday lives.”

While Suri was spot on in terms of having a vision, his biggest failure, perhaps, was the problems related to merger with Alcatel-Lucent. On April 15, 2015, Finnish telecommunications firm Nokia announced its intent to purchase Alcatel-Lucent for €15.6 billion in an all-stock deal. On 14 January 2016, Alcatel-Lucent started operating as part of the Nokia Group.

Former executives who worked with both Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia say that the merger had problems from day one as there were cultural issues between the entities. “The biggest hurdle was that some people who came from Alcatel-Lucent to Nokia group were treated like outsiders. Vertical heads would not talk to each other depending on whether they came from Nokia or Alcatel Lucent. Suri should have stepped in,” said a senior executive who worked at Alcatel Lucent’s India unit but had to quit after the merger with Nokia.

Issues related to 5G

The other big miss may have been related to developments around 5G technologies. In October, Nokia angered investors when it suspended its dividend to conserve cash for 5G investments and cut its earnings guidance, wiping 23 per cent off the share price in a day, according to Bloomberg . “Markets have been very sceptical of whether Suri can continue in his role since the guidance cut last year,” Kimmo Stenvall, an analyst at OP Group in Helsinki, told Bloomberg in a telephonic conversation. “He hasn’t been able to deliver and add value to the company, especially in the 5G era, which is what he was expected to do.”

This is surprising given that Suri had spent over two decades in Nokia and knew the telecom network sector inside out. In an earlier interview with BusinessLine, Suri had said that not moving fast on technology will sound the death knell for any company. “Of course, in the world of technology, sitting still is not an option. In each of our businesses we will continue to transform to meet changing markets and business needs,” he had said in 2014.

Suri had a special liking for the India market. Under his tenure, the country developed as a strategic market for Nokia. The Finnish company, which was once widely known for its handsets, has a huge employee base in India in addition to manufacturing plant and global delivery centre.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW