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NEWS FLASH! MOTOROLA REORGANIZES!

by Tom Cantrell

Start ı If the Chip Fits ı MOTORola ı One Designer, One Vote ı Sources and PDF

Thereıs an old saying in journalism, "If it isnıt a surprise, it isnıt news." This is a simple way of saying itıs more important to learn something unlikely than something we expect. That makes the exclamation point in the headline a bit suspect.

Those of you whoıve followed the corporate machinations of Motorola over the years know the batwingers never met a reorganization they didnıt like. Instead of an exclamation of surprise, consider the exclamation point in its mathematical context, where it means factorial, as in reorganization number (n) ı (n-1) ı (n-2) and so on.

Whatever n is (Iıd say itıs about 99), itıs now one more than it was last month. Trash those old organization charts because, once again, itıs musical chairs at Motorola.

ENTREPRENEURIAL ENTROPY

This is not to say that Motorola is unique in shuffling things around. Itıs simply a case of there being more ways to slice a bigger pie. When youıre a small startup in a niche market, things are simple. When youıre a huge enterprise ($32 billion, with about a quarter of that in semiconductors) with a dizzying catalog of consumer and industrial electronic gadgets, itıs a different story.

Big companies like Motorola rightfully live in mortal fear of succumbing to the bloat and sloth of conglomeritis. For instance, if the outfit is organized along product lines, itıs time to switch to a market sector alignment. But then, maybe itıs better to cozy up to major customers with a focus account strategy.

If the reorganizations are fast and frequent, itıs easy for customers (not to mention journalists) to lose track of whoıs doing what. Do you have a question about the MC68xyz? Who are you going to call? The only thing you can count on for sure is that whoever you called yesterday wonıt be the one whoıs in charge tomorrow.

The most recent shuffle involves layering a channel focus, namely distribution, over the current market-based organization in the form of a Standard Embedded Solutions Group, or SESG (see Figure 1).

Figure 1ıThe new Standard Embedded Solutions Group (SESG) at Motorola fronts the traditional market-based organization (networking and computing, wireless subscriber, transportation, and imaging and entertainment) with one that is distribution channel-oriented.

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