Optimistic Tenor in Market Turmoil

Greg Galitzine quoted Rob Pullens, Tellabs CEO, in a discussion about the market turmoil, in the May 2009 NGN magazine, "That certainly surprised me," said Pullen, "and as you can imagine, like everyone else, our revenues were slightly affected downward. And so in this tough economic time, we need to look around and say, 'we're going to invest our way through this, we're going to emerge stronger on the remote end, but we're going to manage our cash flow and profitability along the way,' that is, things that are in our control. I can't control when the macroeconomic marker's going to improve, but I can control who we manage our expenses, improve our profitability, and keep close to our customers.

I think the two key points made are to invest your way through and keep close to your customers. Not saying to throw money at everyone and everything. More like invest in Asterisk and freeSWITCH education for your developers, participate in conferences where you can get close to suppliers and customers, and cut out some of the red tape so you can get closer to your customers. 

One more compliment to Greg: I liked his choice of language in stating that "Pullen maintains an optimistic tenor and is proud that Tellabs has continued to increase its margins, expanding from 34 to 42 percent annually."

Optimistic tenor... I like it.