When I joined Alcatel in 1990, it was ranked the world’s top telecom company.
That changed dramatically over the years, the “employee shares” I bought became just junk. Their management was sclerotic, authoritarian and lacked any sense of a looking-forward strategy.
Not able to survive, the former champion slimmed down and merged with Lucent.
Now, NOKIA is to take them over.
Sweet revenge for me. I intend to one day write the story in detail, in a book.
Indeed, something like in 1992 we were sent to the London Business School for a seminar to reflect on the future of the company. I need to dig up the details as well as my recommendation. That time I was stationed in Bangkok, as the Alcatel regional director for Indochina – Burma. I was impressed how people in Thailand jumped into the mobile world and how NOKIA was at the forefront.
So, I wrote my report suggesting Alcatel to buy NOKIA. That was received with near ridicule: “Come on, that company is just in Hi-Fi stuff and alike”.
Around the same time I had internal opposition to quote to the Vietnamese DGPT a mobile network around Hanoi. Only after I complained to the President of Alcatel France, I got a quotation. The French lack of interest was explained as follows: “Why talking to the Vietnamese about a mobile network, they even don’t have a phone!”. Obviously a very ignorant reaction.
We soon signed the GSM contract. Guess what? It was the first GSM contract of Alcatel in Asia. Still today I can’t believe that: no contracts in China, Singapore or something? Kidding right.
Later in 1994 in Brazil, same story. I urged Alcatel do Brasil to focus on mobile and private markets. Nope. “We are a company of switching” (= the traditional telephone exchanges).
The rest is history. They completely lost the mobile market, among others.
Good luck to NOKIA. Hopefully they will make better use of the excellent engineering in the company: the incompetence was always with the management.
More details on the expected take-over:
Nokia to snap up Alcatel for $16.6b, China Daily 16 April 2015.
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-04/16/content_20449647.htm