Mitel prepares for three-year fight back

NEWS Mitel is ready to fight its way back to prominence in the telecoms technology market, but it could take up to three years to turn the company around, according to recently appointed MD of EMEA and Asia Pacific, Graham Bevington. In an exclusive interview with Silicon.com, Bevington said Mitel is moving away from its technology focus to concentrate on the market and its customers. But changing the company culture could be a long process, he added. "I think to actually change the culture of a business its more than a few soundbites from a new MD, it takes months, even years," Bevington said. "What we're doing now is starting the thing in motion and I think it will probably take anywhere from 18 months to up to three years for us to see the full change from a cultural perspective in terms of the way the business operates." The company became known as a 'sleeping giant' in the eighties after losing its way in the highly competitive telecoms market. "I think fundamentally the company had failed to bridge the gap between its customer and its products," Bevington admitted. "Mitel is fundamentally a product company - but really what we need to do is understand the needs of our clients, what the applications are that they are looking to use and then use our product marketing and channel marketing expertise to bridge those gaps." Bevington was appointed to turn around the company's fortunes in Europe and Asia. "Sometimes an outsider with a different perspective can give a view of where the business needs to position its self going forward," he said. The company has already started to reorganise its product marketing and channel marketing division, with the loss of some jobs, but according to Bevington that process won't involve further redundancies in Europe. To see the full interview go to Silicon.com's Telecoms Channel (http://www.silicon.com/a37050 ).