From Puget Sound Business Journal
Microsoft CEO Lays Out His Vision for the Company’s Future
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the Redmond company is preparing for “the next act” while working to stay true to its sense of identity.
After all, that clear sense of mission is what brought him to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) more than 20 years ago. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is leading the company into the next wave of technology.
“The thing that impressed me the most in 1992 when I joined the company was that sense of identity and the sense of purpose that was implicitly and very deeply understood,” Nadella said during the Technology Alliance’s annual luncheon on Monday in Seattle. “We knew we had caught something. That’s kind of what got me to come to Microsoft.”
As one of the oldest technology companies, Microsoft’s sense of identity helped the company pivot through technology trends and stay relevant.
“Microsoft caught the technology trend and rode it very well, but what I’ve come to realize is it’s one thing for companies to catch inflection points and ride them – whether it’s Amazon, Facebook, what have you,” he said. “The real test when that wave ends. The wave you caught that made you successful will come to an end. The question is what’s the next act.”
The long-time cloud and server division leader took over as CEO when Ballmer resigned two years ago. Since then, Nadella has been a big part of the company’s ability to change tack. He’s pushed the company toward a new cloud-first, mobile-first vision.
Nadella led Microsoft’s divestment of the Nokia acquisition – Ballmer’s last big move before he stepped down – laying off tens of thousands of employees, writing off the acquisition and shutting down the brand altogether.
That’s when Nadella announced a new mission statement, distancing the company from Ballmer’s often-used “family of devices” mantra. Despite the shift, the company continued to push into hardware. Microsoft released its first laptop during the company’s largest-ever hardware launch late last year.
He’s making Microsoft a more collaborative company by ending long-time software rivalries, including with Salesforce.com, Apple and VMWare.
When Nadella took over for Steve Ballmer in early 2014, Microsoft’s CEO approval rating jumped immediately from 49 percent to 85 percent, according to data provided to the PSBJ from employer review company Glassdoor.
Microsoft’s sense of identity – and knowing who its customers are – has remained a competitive advantage for the company, Nadella said.
“We are clearly one of the the only organizations that thinks about people and institutions,” he said. “Of course, people are the most important thing, but … they aren’t just great entrepreneurs – they are building companies.”
