Hi there. I’d like to introduce Jo Arne Lindstad, who runs Ericsson’s business for Industry & Society (customers who are not telecom operators) in Region Latin America and Caribbean. Like me, Jo Arne is a transplant. He’s Norwegian, living in Brazil. I think his expat experience makes him open to being on the front lines of a “different kind” of Ericsson. Here are his impressions of Mobile World Congress this year:
Three hectic days at Mobile World Congress are over for my part. It has been fantastic to see the focus on Industry & Society from all the people we have been meeting, the industry in general and of course our own top management. Seeing our CEO Hans Vestberg on stage with Scania talking transport solutions and, nearly, self-driving trucks roaming around in Europe really shows how fast the industry is moving. Scania says there are already more than 110,000 intelligent trucks on the road! That’s a huge transformation.
I’ve been involved with Industry & Society efforts in Latin America for more than a year. Just last year, we closed a deal with ASBANC in Peru where we were selected over MasterCard as the main partner enabling an m-banking platform. At the first meeting, I saw so much confusion in the customer’s eyes. “Ericsson, who?” they seemed to ask silently.
There’s less questioning one year into my job, and I’m looking forward to even better understanding after this event. Vestberg’s speech contained more than one amazing number, but try this one on for size: the value of using ICT solutions in transport and health alone is USD 14 trillion. Scania’s presentation onstage in Barcelona supported that, with President and CEO Martin Lundstedt saying that his services business is growing much faster than hardware and predicting that he may one day be able to charge suppliers – of GPS, insurance, maintenance, finance systems – for data from his drivers – just as those suppliers charge him for access to their solutions.
At Mobile World Congress this year, a journalist asked me how much these different kinds of industries are really transforming in Latin America. My response was simply this: While we might be a bit behind the most advanced markets, the changes are happening much faster than you would expect, and any company that does not have this on the agenda is already at risk of becoming irrelevant or uncompetitive very soon.
The important thing is to see an ecosystem in its entirety – for instance, transport systems are not only about connecting trucks, they are about bringing in safety, insurance, entertainment, everything. Connected vehicles are great by themselves, but connecting them to each other can enable alerts that could save some of the 1.2 million lives lost in traffic accidents each year. And by connecting to systems looking at air quality, we can perhaps reduce the number of pollutants that go out on the road.
With this great experience in Barcelona under my belt, I’m now off to Stockholm to meet with more than 20 potential transport customers. 2015 is really starting to take off and Mobile World Congress has given me a great boost for the interesting and exciting year we have in front of us.
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