Liveblogged: Mike Z.’s Keynote

Nortel’s Bo Gown (aka Nortel Buzzboard) liveblogged Mike Zafirovski’s keynote earlier today at the Global Connect conference. To read it, start at the bottom, and work your work to the top.

# I’ll wrap with these comments. Thank you for your business and more importantly thank you for your support. We are putting all our efforts into taking all this technology to really make Business Made Simple for you. It’s not just a tag-line, it’s a mission. We are really working to live up to this.

# Z: #5 What’s your plan to recover Nortel’s luster? We have Lauren Flaherty our CMO here because of the opportunity we see in transforming Nortel’s image. We are also focusing on our customers.

# Z: #4 Is enterprise core to Nortel? I hope there is not a person in this room that has this question anymore. We have a strong leadership team with Joel Hackney. There is a passion and commitment to driving results. 50-70% of Joel’s time is in the field talking to customers.

# Z: #3 Will POR be more accurate? We have shows a 4X improvement in POR predictability, 70% gain in on-time delivery of product features, with a goal of 90% delivery here. We have improved and this is only going to continue.

# Z: #2, How will we improve quality? We are deploying Lean Six Sigma, we are reducing our supply chain complexity, and we are increasing our focus on channels and CSAT.

# Z: Now to the progress we’ve made against the five big questions that you’ve asked me here a few years ago: 1) what will you do to regain Nortel tech leadership? We have build a strong R&D leadership team, We had 20 locations that were doing various R&D activities. We recently announced Centers of Excellence to drive our R&D activities. Also investments in software capabilities and partnerships.

# Z: I was thrilled to see the customers that were recognized yesterday [in the customer awards lunch]. I always say there is no greater pleasure in business than being recognized by your peers.

# Z: So where is Nortel today? We have the right people, we have a strong customer base, committed to quality. I also think we have a unique position across enterprise and carrier. I do believe are becoming much better leveraging partners. Specifically our JV with LG has shown tremendous growth. I also think we are making the right bets in the future.

# Z: Our financials: good improvement here over the last 18 months. Our revenues have grown, operating margin has improved.

# Z: 12,000 R&D employees, 150 major new products last year, 5,200 patents, participate in 80 standards bodies.

# Z: Nortel’s investment strategy – we’ve evolved from having 55% of our innovation investment in Legacy products to 20%. We have now doubled our investments in emerging technologies to 20%. John Roese is now putting 3% of R&D investment into incubation.

# Z: Nortel’s focus areas on the supply side are enabling true broadband, and on the demand side with creating communications-enabled applications.

# Z: Nortel’s strategy has three premises: 1) transformed enterprise — TDM to VoIP to UC, 2) Next generation mobility and convergence with technologies like 4G, FMC, through applications and with IP transport….

# Mike Zafirovski: Hyperconnectivity is happening today: 1.6 million new mobile phones are added to the network every day. 10 billion microprocessors will be sold this year.

More: FierceVOIP has a story colourfully titled “Nortel’s Return from Doom” that provides a recap of Zafirovski’s keynote.

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