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CMO Lauren Flaherty says Nortel back on track

Thursday, April 10, 2008

By Terry Hadley
Venue: Sutton Place Hotel

Photos: T.Hadley

Nortel’s chief marketing officer, Lauren Flahery, admitted that while the Nortel of the past “lost its way,” it is now back on track. And connecting IT with voice through partners such as Microsoft and IBM is playing a big role.
“I am passionate about turning this company around,” she said in an animated presentation to The Vancouver Board of Trade held in cooperation with The Board’s Women’s Leadership Circle^®.

Flaherty said Nortel has now established a “clarity of destination,” “purpose” and is “staying on track.”
She outlined how she has headed up the re-branding of the new Nortel. “Hyperconnectivity” is the key. Flaherty said Nortel has taken the view that anything that can be connected will be connected; the company is “focusing on the proliferation of communicating” currently done through a “proliferation of devices.” The trick, for Nortel, is to make sure good technologies are not simply thrown out as people continuously seek one platform, but to make them talk to each other.

“Nortel gets this world,” Flaherty said. Partnerships with Microsoft and IBM have been established to move in this direction – to make the connection between IT and voice.

“These worlds are about to become interconnected,” she said.

“IBM doesn’t come from the voice world and they choose their partners very carefully, as does Microsoft.”

“Unified communications” has become Nortel’s advertising slogan in efforts to rebuild its brand.

“We need to reintroduce Nortel to the market place and we’re doing this in a very targeted way,” Flaherty said.

The Board of Trade’s Women’s Leadership Circle® members later had the opportunity to meet and question Lauren Flaherty at a lively Speaker’s Roundtable chaired by WLC vice-chair Judy Thomson.

The company realizes it is in a competitive world and has taken measures to come out ahead of the pack.

“Good enough is not good enough among so many choices,” she said.

Sales staff  have been retrained on the “consultative sell” to be able to inform their customers of best solutions and to become completely customer-centric. “It’s a very complex world out there.”

Research and Development (R&D) focused previously on legacy platforms rather than future, innovative platforms as it now does, focusing on marketing Nortel as an innovator moving forward with the times.
And Flaherty believes in her message that Nortel is well on the way. “It can be done,” she said.

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