By Sunaina Davet

As organizations across the world are impacted by an unprecedented crisis, it doesn’t need to spell disaster. In fact, leaders who comprehend how to successfully navigate a crisis can emerge stronger and improve strategy implementation. A company’s core values and leadership framework is essential to this.

The time to leverage the full benefits of ICT is now, and investing in technologies that provide the strategic flexibility and dynamic capabilities to drive growth is business critical. Ericsson manages and optimizes telecom networks and IT operations with highly industrialized processes and a truly global delivery model. We create value and business differentiation by taking a holistic approach that covers all aspects of our customers’ businesses.

During these challenging times, our Managed Services Operations has quickly implemented the necessary business continuity plans and actions to ensure our customer network operations are uninterrupted and that we are able to continue to serve our customers.

Stakeholders may forget the crisis, but how you handle the situation will be etched into their memory, and shape their perception of you long into the future. This ideology inspires powerful behaviors which ripple through an organization motivating leaders and beyond to execute against them.

Ericsson’s leadership framework highlights the importance of timely, fact-based strategies, cooperation and collaboration while executing strategies in an efficient manner.

Shifts in data traffic have changed drastically over the past few weeks as the coronavirus pandemic continues. For instance, we’ve seen major shifts in data and voice traffic moving from downtown to suburban and residential areas, as a result of lockdowns and less mobility and movement in cities.

We’ve also seen a significant rise in mobile voice calls, as well as bi-directional services, such as video calls and tools for smart working. In addition to this, we see uptake in utilization of real customer experience services such as internet entertainment services, live streaming and social media interactions. This for sure will bring a new set of challenges that ICT sector needs to address.

High-performance operations are fundamental to the successful transition to the “new normal” whilst service providers optimize and adapt their existing network infrastructure. Now more than ever, we need to do everything possible to support customers to maximize their network capacity and performance.

A close cooperation between Operators and partners like Ericsson is fundamental for operators to plan for any change in network utilization and associated market demands based on available network data analysis.

Streamlined operations reduce the obstacles and enable service providers to face new challenges with ease. Artificial Intelligence and automation provide the performance, flexibility, and scale to pave the way for new levels of connectivity. It is helping service providers in three innovative ways:

1. Bring new services to the increasingly dynamic market faster and more cost-efficiently. The key to this is to boost collaboration, speed, and scale when developing new applications and digital services.
2. Leverage AI to improve service performance and drive revenue growth. You can use AI to analyze complex data sets and improve network performance in real-time, driving revenues and reducing churn.
3. Dynamically scale resources to support the launch of new services. You can leverage network data to predictively and automatically scale resources during the launch of new services to support temporary loads.

To withstand and thrive during this time, Ericsson along with many other businesses have realized that they need to do more than create a reliable infrastructure that supports growth. Our Managed Services teams are working tirelessly to maintain the best possible service and minimize the impact that disruption would cause from remote areas in Africa to India and Romania.

In addition to holistic business continuity plans, cooperating and collaborating with our partners to put in place pertinent actions and steps has enabled both Ericsson and service providers to maintain a steady uninterrupted telecommunication infrastructure.

The exponential growth of connected devices requires networks to operate more efficiently than ever before. On the other hand, delivering consistent performance and reliability are critical to their success. With a little bit of planning, we can provide enhanced consumer services, unlock new experiences and push boundaries of what a network can do.

By Sunaina Davet, Head of Managed Services at Ericsson West and South East Africa