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Ericsson | A practitioners’ guide to accelerate 5G for business in 2020
Introduction
2020 is a formational year when it comes to 5G for Enterprises. However, the COVID-19 virus outbreak suddenly halted the options for face-to-face engagements to discuss technical, operational and business capabilities. To support 5G practitioners, we’ve compiled nine strategic actions you can address, no matter where you’re currently working from.
A practitioners’ guide to 5G
While it is easy to agree on what 5G will bring in 2025, today’s current industry environment has made it increasingly difficult to develop succinct tactics and plans for the next 6-12 months. Leading players across multiple industries were at the ready to engage in finalizing strategies and transitioning into strategy execution. But since the coronavirus outbreak, the impending task for 5G practitioners to answer is, “What can we do to advance 5G for business customers in 2020?”. In this article, we will take you through a set of questions and actions that stand out for companies with ambitions to gain firstmover advantages with 5G. Questions and actions where clarity is vital for a speedy execution once we have ridden out the storm. These nine actions are designed for 5G professionals in marketing, sales or sales engineering who are seeking compelling new ways to engage with business customers.
1. Disrupt by shrinking your business lead times
Business embraces 5G for different reasons than consumers. If we look at historical patterns, we see a consistent theme that mobile network generations shrink distances and barriers for businesses, and make connecting people in drastically different locations as easy as the touch of a button. By shrinking the business world to new levels, we can unlock values on both the cost and the revenue side. 5G has the potential to take the world faster and further than any previous network generation due to new network capabilities. An excellent conversation topic is, therefore, “How can you leverage 5G to shrink distances, lead times and response times to unlock disruptive business improvements?”
This is a conversation you can add value to by explaining: • How the first four mobile generations brought the world closer • The new capability sets introduced by 5G, and how it contributes to shrinking the world • How your business customers’ current challenges can be matched with the capabilities of 5G to further shrink their world The goal for this first conversation is to establish a mutual understanding of why 5G is a great way to shrink the business world for specific problems. This understanding will ultimately provide clarity on which imperatives you can address in 2020 for implementation in 2021.
2. Build and leverage first-mover advantages
We’ve seen a steady stream of global-first announcements since deploying the first 5G systems in labs, ranging from major technology milestones, use-case innovations and networks and service launches. While communication service providers and technology providers in the telecommunications industry have been in the driver’s seat, the next in line to be added to the broader 5G ecosystem are your best business customers. The conversation to tee-off here is, “What is driving your strategic ambition to be either a first-mover or a follower?” The businesses aspiring to gain first-mover advantages will be the most active in 2020, and you should expect to be asked to provide perspectives on topics such as: • When can I expect to have access to 5G networks for early field evaluations? • Who are the other key players in the ecosystem for my industry and why? • What defines the time to market timelines I need to aim towards to secure first-mover advantages?
