Motorola Wanted CEO

Motorola’s (MOT) mobile-phone business came from the most sought after to the next disaster waiting to happen in just after a few short years. Razr became a hit until they couldn’t come up with the next product trend to claim their stand in the mobile world business. Motorola became a one time industry leader in the mobile world till it dropped down heavily losing market shares and sales. The business was at its ultimate struggle that CEO Gregory Q. Brown had to carefully find someone who will qualify as an executive to run the business or any feasible bid to buy it.

However Motorola made this move in March 26 to spin off the mobile phone unit can change their misfortune into fortune. A company tries to set up their business as a separately traded public entity and that is the company that is The Schaumburg (I11), while retaining their executive search firm that is of Russel Reynolds Associates to find and recruit a new CEO for the company. Brown will find it much easier to find a top notch candidate, since the new chief will be free to do whatever it is in that area. Peter D. Crist, head of executive recruiter of Crist Associates based in suburban Chicago said, “That changes the dynamics of the search, top execs at key players such as Nokia and other rivals would not have been interested [if the phone unit were not separate]. Suddenly they perk up and say: ‘I can run that business.’”

One analyst called the phone unit as what looked like “a poisoned chalice”, had suddenly begun to be a fountain of golden opportunities. Motorola had been part of a phone business that is under a bureaucratic corporate culture. Even if there came a time that the mobile-phone business makes up half of the company sales, the executives have not been able to independently run and operate. Yankee Group telecom analyst John Jackson says “This looks a lot less unattractive than the encumbered, politically mired entity that existed at midnight on Mar. 25,”

Expectation could be at its worse this 2008 where the phone division will experience a downfall from $19 billion to $16 billion. This is a forecast done by the American Technology Research. So with this, any improvement in the unit’s financial performance will be credited as a symbol of success.

Sources had been noting on Brown as having been considering a couple of candidates for the job in recent weeks, however Brown has set the bar high for this position. Operating a global phone manufacturer is no easy task, most especially with the kind of forecast American Technology Research has for this year. Motorola had struggled in the hands of former CEO’s Christopher B. Galvin and Edward J. Zander. Brown said in a Business Week interview, “We want someone who is a proven leader with a results orientation, who preferably has technology awareness and a consumer-electronics or customer background in the wireless space.”