Reading Comprehension 1

Read the article and decide if these statements are True (T), False (F) or Not Given (NG) 1 Mr Elop had made similar speeches before the one on March 18th. 2 Before the 1990s, Nokia was a car manufacturer. 3 Mr Elop changes the way he delivers his speeches depending on his audience. 4 Symbian and Meego platforms were developed by Nokia. 5 Critics of Nokia dont believe that Mr Elop will succeed in turning the company around. 6 Critics also believe that the company culture needs to be consensual. 7 Mr Elop once worked for Microsoft. 8 On his first day at Nokia, Mr Elop had a meeting with his key staff. 9 The feedback from Nokia employees indicated that managements lack of decision-making was a big problem. 10 Jo Harlows information about Meego and Symbian helped the company to focus on the future. 11 Nokias bargaining power with Google was stronger than that with Microsoft. 12 Microsoft saw the partnership as a chance to compete strongly against Google. 13 Nokia must be pro-active if it is going to survive.

Vocabulary 1
Match the words and expressions in Box A with their meanings in Box B. You can use a dictionary to help you. 1 radical 2 crammed 3 tailored 4 gravity 5 predicament 6 superseding 7 complacency 8 doomed 9 compounded 10 consensual 11 haemorrhaged 12 creed 13 simultaneously 14 squandering a) difficult situation b) wasting c) very important, extreme d) lost very quickly e) packed, crowded f) at the same time g) customised, modified h) belief i) assurance that everything is fine j) seriousness k) taking over from l) everyone being in agreement m) made worse n) has no chance of succcess

Inside Nokia: trying to revive a giant

FT Correspondent

Stephen Elop, Nokias chief executive, is about to deliver for the 10th time his town hall address to staff. He must sell to them the most radical strategy change since the historic tyres-to-timber Finnish conglomerate turned itself into the worlds leading mobile phone company in the 1990s. It is March 18. About 150 staff have crammed into the top-floor canteen of Nokias central London office to listen to their Canadian boss. The speech is tailored each time for a different audience. But the style is the same everywhere: direct, open, interactive. In early February, Mr Elop issued his instantly famous burning platform memo explaining bluntly the gravity of Nokias predicament and why staff had to take a terrifying jump into the unknown. Soon after, he administered a further shock to Nokias heart, when he announced the choice of Microsoft as software partner for its smartphones, superseding its homegrown Symbian and Meego platforms, and launched a push to reach the next billion customers for low-end handsets in emerging markets. Critics say he is too late and his attempted rescue is doomed. Poor leadership and complacency bred of success, compounded by an overconsensual culture, caused Nokia to miss the smartphone revolution. Since then it has haemorrhaged share to Apples iPhone and fallen behind phones based on Googles Android operating system, while taking heavy punishment from emerging market competitors making fast, cheap handsets at the

lower end of the market. Scale of the challenge As the first non-Finn to run the company in its 145 years, Mr Elop is under particular pressure. His protection includes a deep knowledge of the dynamics of the software industry acquired at Microsoft, his old employer and, in the words of Mr Ollila, the chairman who hired him, his tremendous energy and drive. So far this drive has been evident in the big decisions Mr Elop has taken, based on a creed of openness, accountability and speed. The very first day I began, he says, I sent out an e-mail to all of the employees and I asked them three questions: what do you think I need to change? What do you think I need not or should not change? What are you afraid Im going to miss? They e-mailed back in their thousands with a tale of management indecision and staff frustration. When you have a large organisation where accountability is unclear, many people make decisions and some of them cancel each other out, says Mr Elop, Why Microsoft? Simultaneously, Mr Elop asked top managers to address questions about Nokias competitiveness in the smartphone market. Could Symbian, the platform for Nokias smartphones, and Meego, the groups next generation operating system, pose a challenge to Apple and Googles Android by the second half of 2011? At a critical meeting of the leadership team in January, Jo Harlow in charge of Symbian and now head of the newly formed smart devices division told Mr Elop that Meego wasnt mature enough and Symbian could not fill

the gap. The decision focused the top team on whether to link Nokias future to Android or Microsoft. Nokia-branded Android phones would be hard to differentiate from the mass of competitors. And Nokia had more bargaining power with Microsoft than with Google. With Nokia, Microsofts Windows Phone had a significant opportunity to move forward and become a real alternative in the industry. That had huge value for Microsoft. Rivals are not pausing to let Nokia catch up. Last week, the stock market value of Taiwans HTC, which makes touchscreen Android-based smartphones, surpassed Nokias. This all highlights Nokias recent inability to adapt as fast as its competitors. Mr Elop and his lieutenants must achieve a rapid transformation that refocuses Nokia on sustainable profit and market share, without squandering its culture and creativity. From the Financial Times