Satya Nadella came up throughout the ranks the hard way, with internal opposition. That’s why he’s the proper man to modify Microsoft.
The appointment of Satya Nadella as Microsoft CEO could have come as a surprise to many, however the appointment shouldn’t in the event you know the corporate best. Forrester was an active Microsoft watcher and consultant since its founding. I’ve worked with the company’s Server and Tools division for the last five years. I’ve met with Satya a pair times up to now year and had lengthy discussions with managers who’ve worked closely with him (some still at Microsoft, some not). Here is what i will let you know about him from what I’ve learned.
Satya came to Server and Tools from the net group, where he ran the Bing search engine team. In this time, he learned how online businesses differ from on-premises enterprise applications and the significance in that business of moving fast. He was dropped at Server and Tools to educate that team this agile online model.
This move was a little bit an experiment, really, because his charter was to bring speed to a business not known for it. Frankly, it was unproven whether this approach could fit culturally with this division or work for this class of shopper. The change meant getting not only Windows Azure to maneuver at this speed (that was logical), but in addition getting the server OS, SQL Server database, and the remainder of the teams during this enterprise software division off the linear waterfall development method. It also meant working to transition all of the division’s applications over to software-as-a-service and onto Windows Azure ASAP.
Nadella bumped into serious cultural and political barriers, with many incumbent managers (most adamant in the SQL Server team) fighting this variation very hard. He refused to backpedal or compromise at the shift to cloud, and many the managers who refused to get on board aren’t there anymore.
[Would like to learn more in regards to the many challenges facing Nadella in CEO role? See Satya Nadella: 6 Must-Dos For Microsoft’s New CEO.]
Nadella found a powerful partner at the engineering side, Scott Guthrie (now his successor as president of Server and Tools), to aid him convince the engineering ranks of the advantages of moving to the agile model. Guthrie is the rare executive who maintains his credibility in the engineering ranks. Not just can he set direction, manage the cheap, and drive architectural vision, but he sit at your desk, review your code, and connect your bugs. That cred is vital to how he won over a reluctant engineering group.
Nadella was also instrumental in restructuring the Microsoft’s sales compensation model — a step that was critical to moving the corporate and its customers over to a cloud-first strategy. He pushed for commission accelerators for Office 365 and Windows Azure sales, especially as add-ons to existing enterprise agreements.
Nadella is a difficult, numbers-driven leader. But he is not a screamer like Ballmer — more low key and thoughtful, but strong.
He still has lots of work to do to get all of Microsoft to embrace agile schedules and maybe an even bigger battle to get its partners and its customers ok with subscriptions and the hot pace of change. He is mostly a little bit of a bull in a China shop on these issues, but i love his approach. He isn’t willing to compromise at the priority of this alteration.
In my opinion his selection is a superb thing for the entire direction of the corporate, because he’s a visionary, has passion for change, is making it happen, and knows what it takes to drive change within the unique Microsoft culture. An intruder would have had a troublesome time coming in and driving this alteration. Time is of the essence for Microsoft to make this transformation.
Too many companies treat digital and mobile strategies as pet projects. Listed here are four ideas to shake up your organization. Also within the Digital Disruption issue of InformationWeek: Six enduring truths about selecting enterprise software. (Free registration required.)
James Staten is vp and principal analyst serving infrastructure & operations professionals at Forrester Research.
James Staten is vp and principal analyst serving infrastructure & operations professionals at Forrester Research. View Full Bio
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