Ben Verwaayen has a taste for tough nuts. He cracked one, with BT. Can he do it again with Alcatel-Lucent? A former Lucent executive, Mr Verwaayen’s tenure at BT for more than six years was, by most measures, a success. True, the bloom may have come off the rose somewhat with the most recent results under BT’s new boss, but the markets have a short memory. From 2002 onwards, BT’s business was changed for the better. Mr Verwaayen championed the cause of global services, nudged the old BT to embrace change, even though it threatened its bread and butter telephony business. He also navigated tricky regulatory waters while shareholders received a rising dividend.

Does that make him the right person, along with newly appointed chairman Philippe Camus, to dig Alcatel-Lucent out of its self-inflicted hole? He has not had to steer a company through the bruising experience of a cross-border merger. But the new top team’s international credentials are as impressive as they come, which should help. It may be, however, that too much has been made of the culture wars at Alcatel-Lucent. There are two bigger problems and they should play to Mr Verwaayen’s strengths.