Business strategy for global business development in new market segments (Transport & Automotive, Energy, Public safety)

Olle's role:

Head of Strategy for the business unit and member of the business unit's global management team, as well as sales support in priority customer engagements.

The challenge:

• Identify and select attractive industry segments and an outside-in analysis of their drivers for digitalization and needs for mobile communications as enablers of transformation to more data-driven businesses.

• Inside-out analysis to identify and package relevant parts of the existing global portfolio, as well as internalize and motivate the respective product owners to invest in new market segments.

• Balancing opportunities and risks with new marketing activities in relation to existing core business with existing large customers.

The solution:

Decomposed sub-segmentation of selected industries and a service-driven market engagement model for direct sales of existing service resources in a limited number of geographic markets, with local/regional control of segment and customer selection (incl. relationship with existing customers), and globally funded "embedded" sales support resources with industry knowledge.

A global steering group at Group level with representatives from the Regions and Product Units involved.

Own involvement in early strategic customer cases in the automotive industry (connected passenger cars and heavy vehicle fleets), logistics sector (connected goods carriers, fleets, logistics hubs, ports, etc.), shipping sector (connected fleets and containers), electricity distributors (connected smart meters and smart grids), etc.

Results:

Organization and operations that had a profitable turnover of just over SEK 6 billion, before being dismantled as a consequence of financial challenges at group level and related strategy adjustments for the core business.

Insights:

Crucial to ensure:

- Recruitment (global and local) of senior people from the respective target industry.

- Early relationship building with leading players in selected sub-segments.

- Long-term internal sponsorship and continuous internal anchoring at all levels, in order to communicate a long-term market commitment externally.

- Business model and results that clearly demonstrate added value to the core business, while new business development must have an "arm's length" gap to the core business and its processes.