New Strategy Officer feels Nokia long-term strategy is spot-on
High-tech guru Tero Ojanperä feels his lack of management experience is not a problem
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By Marko Junkkari
When the subject of the interview turns to technology, Tero Ojanperä, who will soon take over as the Chief Strategy Officer of Nokia, and who is to join the company’s Board of Directors, becomes visibly more relaxed. "The introduction of 3G is in good shape", he says.
The sentences of the man who had been the head of Nokia’s Research Centre are full of technical information on radio frequencies and digital convergence, and peppered with abbreviations containing four or five letters, such as HSDPA, CDMA, HSUPA...
It has been a busy week for Ojanperä. He has given numerous interviews after Monday’s announcement that he would take over as Nokia’s Chief Strategy Officer, replacingMatti Alahuhta, who is taking the post of CEO of Kone.
On Wednesday Ojanperä was in India on a work-related visit, and he gave a telephone interview in a car while en route from one meeting to another.
Ojanperä is clearly more cautious when asked about topics related to his new job. "No great changes are in store for previously defined strategies and priorities", he says cautiously. In every interview he has emphasised the importance of continuity.
It is hard for a new administrator to start by criticising previous decisions, and he does not necessarily even want to do so. According to Ojanperä, Nokia’s long-term strategy has been correct.
The market leader of the mobile telephony branch has been the engine of product development in the field, and has promoted digital convergence - that is, how digital devices such as the mobile phone, personal computer, game console, television, and the MP-3 player are coming close together.
This year has been difficult for Nokia; the company has not responded to the rapid changes in the field quickly enough. There are gaps in Nokia’s product range, and the company lost much of its market share to competitors in the early part of the year. By the late spring Nokia seemed to have brought the slide to an end.
"In a rapidly changing field, strategy has to be constantly re-examined", Ojanperä says. A few weeks ago Nokia announced that it was cutting its input into research and product development. Ojanperä says that this meant primarily a move to stimulate R&D activities. The new products and innovations need to reach the market more quickly.
Ojanperä will not speculate on how much the efforts at efficiency will lead to cuts in Nokia’s R&D personnel. "That is not the issue, but rather the development of people’s competence", he says.
Born in Korsnäs, near Vaasa, and raised in Vihanti, Ojanperä has a strong background in technology.
He graduated as an engineer in electrical engineering at Oulu University in 1991. He wrote his engineer’s dissertation for Nokia.
In 1999 he defended his doctor’s dissertation on third generation mobile phone technology at the University of Delft in The Netherlands. He has been often praised as one of the world’s top experts on 3G technology.
In 1998, along with Ramjee Prasad, he published a book Wideband CDMA for Third Generation Mobile Communications, which is considered a basic work of 3G technology.
Although the book is completely unintelligible techno-gibberish for the layperson, it has sold surprisingly well.
"We got a certificate from the on-line bookstore Amazon for high sales", Ojanperä reveals.
While at Nokia Ojanperä has worked with the Mobile Phones unit, as well as Nokia Networks. From the point of view of his own career he feels that it was important for him to be closely involved in the 3G standardisation process in the mid-1990s.
After Ojanperä’s appointment, analysts praised his technological know-how, but criticised his scant experience in strategy and business questions. Ojanperä himself does not see this as a major problem. "Nokia is a technology company. Both are needed", he says.
Actually, he does have strategy experience, as he has been involved in the strategic planning of Nokia’s management team for a few years. He also has management experience from the Nokia Research Centre, where he had 1,200 subordinates in six different countries.
Defining his management philosophy brings Ojanperä a few problems. "It is difficult for a person to evaluate that himself", he says. "I’ll try to be a good manager: honest and fair."
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.11.2004
MARKO JUNKKARI / Helsingin Sanomat
marko.junkkari@hs.fi
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| 30.11.2004 - THIS WEEK |
 New Strategy Officer feels Nokia long-term strategy is spot-on |
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