Ericsson has announced that it will pursue a more focused business strategy to revitalise technology and market leadership, improve group profitability and enable customer success.
In a statement, it adds that the overall strategy is to enable service providers to expand their business across industries and into new profit pools. The company adds that it will drive the development of market-leading solutions, fully leveraging the potential of 5G, IoT and cloud.
Ericsson says that restoring profitability is key and it will start by focusing the portfolio to fewer areas and securing effectiveness and efficiency in operations.
It will increase emphasis on solutions across the company, combining products and services, to drive efficiency and better meet customer needs and requirements. This will also be reflected in a simplified organisation. In parallel it will also accelerate investments both in R&D and services capabilities in selected core areas to ensure that it can offer its customers leading solutions.
In a list of portfolio changes, Ericsson says it will explore strategic opportunities for its media business while continuing to develop its media solutions.
It will now create two separate units, Ericsson Broadcast & Media Services and Ericsson Media Solutions, to create a stronger operational focus.
Commenting on the strategy, Börje Ekholm, Ericsson president and CEO, said: “For some time Ericsson has been challenged on both technology and market leadership and the group strategy has not yielded expected returns. In our strategy review we have listened carefully to customers around the world and made an in-depth analysis of our portfolio and performance. To enable us to immediately take action and move with speed in execution we are today outlining our path to restoring profitability and to lead with innovation and best in class solutions in areas we have decided to focus on.”
He added: “With these changes I am confident that we will create the most intelligent and efficient networks, deliver the most competitive solutions and constantly innovate to enable our customers to succeed in a fully connected world.”