Unfiltered

At first glance, analysts do not appear to be too dismayed by the news of Juniper Networks’ chief operations officer resigning without a replacement. In a research note this morning, UBS Investment Research analyst Nikos Theodosopoulos called the announcement a definite negative for Juniper but said the router vendor’s strong fundamentals would outweigh any effect of Stephen Elop’s departure in coming months.

Elop, who joined Juniper as COO (a post created for him) only a year ago this month, was crucial to the router vendor as it conducted a sweeping internal overhaul. The man himself described some of those efforts to me in an interview last fall. In that sort of reorganization, it’s especially helpful to have an outsider at the helm to see things with a fresh pair of eyes. If Juniper is now on the tail end of those efforts, Elop’s importance may be ebbing anyway.

For day-to-day operations, I have posed the question before: Who needs a COO? Some studies have even suggested that CEOs with COOs perform worse because they rely on the COOs more.

In any case, if Juniper wants to maintain the position, Theodosopoulos had an interesting piece of advice in this morning’s note.

“Juniper may need to provide a path to CEO for the new COO in order to get a high-caliber candidate like Elop,” he wrote. “Juniper has had two COOs in the past, and both left the company within two years of starting.”

Juniper’s CEO for more than 11 years, quinquagenarian Scott Kriens, gives the impression he plans to stick around a while. If Juniper wants to lure a top-shelf, hard-working, ambitious COO, the company must realize that, to such a person, being COO won’t always be enough.