Change of guard at NTT DoCoMo

DoCoMo still is one of the most successful mobile carriers in the world. Now, President Keiji Tachikawa will resign next month and is successor is current Senior Executive Vice President Masao Nakamura.

DoCoMo succeeded by being innovative, customer centric and, I read once, because of its independence from bureaucratice NTT, the "mother" organisation.

However, competition has it that it catches up with the leader, if leading companies don't change fast enough - and DoCoMo over the last couple of years was battled with emerging competitors, declining growth rates, and customers who looked elsewhere for a different type of service. However, that is not the reason why Tachikawa steps down - but he regrets that he has to hand over the service during troubled times.

Nakamura already indicated the areas that DoCoMo wants to concentrate on as its future strategy, namely

1.) to increase the number of subscribers to its third-generation mobile phone service named "FOMA"

2.) to establish new revenue sources, such as mobile e-commerce

3.) to enhance customer satisfaction.

Pity that he mentioned customer satisfaction last but apparently, he has the answer already as he says that "All our company needs to do now is to create new services". Makes us think - isn't this product centric, company talk? Where is the input from the customer? He says that it will take a couple of years to get the company on the recovery track. No wonder!