Connecting People

By John Clarke

With popular technology brands dominating the cell phone market, John Clarke, CIO of handset giant Nokia, faces some big challenges. The company is working to re-assert itself as the leader of this competitive and perpetually evolving market, so innovative technology is more important than ever. But for Clarke, ensuring he has happy employees and an efficient production model is just as conducive to success as the technology itself. He explains his HR focused approach to his role as CIO. “My primary role is to enhance business performance,” he says, “so in some ways I’m like a coach. My job is to say, ‘how can we work with you to increase your performance?’”

Unsurprisingly given his role, Clarke is keen to outline the importance of technology to the business, describing it as the main weapon he has at his disposal to increase productivity. He points out however that being the head of IT at a firm that holds technology at its core isn't as straight-forward as it appears. "As a traditionally product-centric company," he explains, "encouraging people to think about the advantages that can be gained from technology outside how we use it in a device has proved challenging. We've expanded our strategy now to say ‘it's not only technology in a device; it's how we use technology ourselves that gives us a leading edge.'"

New Nokia

This shift in thinking about how the company uses technology is key to Nokia's new position in today's market. As major players such as Apple usurp Nokia's position at the forefront of the handset market, the firm has had to alter its service in order to remain dominant in the increasingly competitive industry. Clarke explains how Nokia's latest products have been developed by the firm working with IT in different ways; in order to bring the company into its new era, Nokia are going beyond being a product company and becoming more services and software centric, and all it comes down to the way technology is used. "A lot of my latest projects," he explains, "are collaborative between the devices division or the services divisions."

Naturally, one of the roles of technology in the business, outside how it is used in a device, is its ability to run production in a more cost and time effective way and this all comes under Clarke's jurisdiction. "We look at our entire operation, more than just the cost of IT itself, and ask ourselves, ‘What generates cost? How can we streamline that and make it more effective by automation?' Look at our factories for example. They work at an incredible pace, producing 13 devices a second."

Clarke is quick to ensure, however, that his department doesn't just become a cost-cutting division. "We make sure that we never lose face of the fact around the service we're offering or the quality of service or the operational benefit," he says. "We try not to have these ‘just talk about costs' debates. We say, ‘what are we trying to offer here? What are the benefits? And what could we have achieved if we'd enabled it better?'"

Asking these questions of his department seems to have been key to Clarke's success as a CIO; the firm has increasingly reduced its spending on IT due to the economic downturn, but through its strategic balance of using technology to improve the production model and collaborating effectively with other divisions of the business, Nokia has generated the greatest returns on technology investment it has ever seen.

People power

This focus on alignment within the firm is paramount to Clarke. "We're trying to encourage an open and collaborative style," he says. "For innovation to occur, in my personal view, people must want to collaborate. You can't force it. We have a lot of very smart people, and getting agreement can sometimes be challenging.

"There is an architectural dimension to my role, and as part of that I have been trying to create this kind of seamless eradication of the barriers [between divisions], so there's far more integration. So, as you go through the life cycle of a project, there's no need to stop and start." This HR centric approach is a signature of Clarke's style as a leader; he describes himself as a warm person and puts strong emphasis on his employees, knowing that in order for the technology upon which Nokia relies to flourish, the staff must be committed to their work. "We have a very engaged work force," he explains. "We have a lot of people who want to innovate, and because of that engagement with the company emotionally and rationally, they make time for that innovation." Also, Clarke sees the importance of having a strong working environment that is conducive to technology innovation. "We're giving our people a chance to step back and learn about other industries," he explains. "We invest heavily in education, training, in bringing in academic speakers to present the universe from different angles. The desire to learn is a strong part of our culture."

In addition to education about industries, Clarke encourages his employees to learn more about the needs of customers they serve, so as to allow innovation to flourish within the firm. "We have a diversity of input in a diversity of fields,' says Clarke, "From those fields we get the innovation. We get lots of innovation from Africa and the Middle East - places we see as emerging markets. You'll see our researchers on the ground in Nairobi, seeing how people communicate. That's a key part of Nokia's culture. We like to be in the field with people, seeing what their problems are and bring that back in."

For Clarke, the role of the CIO is about maintaining the effective and thorough integration of technology within the company, so the company is able to realize the extent of its ability. He explains how Nokia's federated structure and high staff rotation levels ensure that quality IT personnel reach every corner of the business. Ultimately, Clarke says, it all comes down to realizing potential. "I think IT professionals have a lot more to give, actually, when they think about business performance engineering, rather than just technology."