Mikael Lindholm, Head of Asia Pacific, Telenor Connexion, gave one of the most popular presentations at TM Forum Live! Asia in Singapore, talking about enabling and monetizing IoT. He stressed the importance of adapting your business model to different industries’ needs and cultural preferences.

It’s hard for companies that are doing well to change and I see more and more companies adopt things to have a digital strategy, which is all wrong.

Lindholm gave this video interview immediately after his presentation, saying, “It is important to understand that each industry has its own dynamics, its own requirements…and you see differences even within industries. The way you charge for services and the way [our] customers earn money in manufacture is really different from automotive or utilities, and that is why we need to monetize differently.”



He acknowledges that this is great contrast to usual practice for network operators, which tend to offer “standard price plans” and continued, “Today we see ourselves in the value network – it’s not a value chain – and our core service is managed connectivity: without this a thing is not smart.”

Learned from long experience

Telenor has been in Asia since 1995. Lindholm states, “We’ve learned a lot since then, and realized that things are done differently here. We bring our global skills, but regulation and market demands are different: To be specific, pricing is a much hotter topic here. [Globally] we tend to work on total cost of ownership (TOC) with customers, whereas here it is more price-focused. So, you need to find easier ways for the user to access, although it might be higher cost in the end, but price is so important.”

And he agrees that there is terrific urgency for businesses to adapt and change, and warns that many companies’ digital strategies are fundamentally flawed: “I like the fact that 52 percent of all Fortune 500 companies have disappeared in the last 15 years, so there is definitely an urgency out there. It’s hard for companies that are doing well to change and I see more and more companies adopt things to have a digital strategy, which is all wrong. I mean they should have a strategy in the digitalized world because we are living in it, so you’d better adapt and realize that.”

You can read more from Mikael in recent his blog post.