For telecom executives, 5G is not only a network upgrade: it can also change how an operator serves customers, works with industries and earns revenue. A 2018 interview with Eva Hedfors, then Head of Marketing and Communications at Ericsson Digital Services, argued that operators should plan 5G and digitalization as one business transformation rather than as separate technology projects. That remains a useful strategic framework, but it is a historical viewpoint—not a current assessment of 5G deployment or a neutral evaluation of Ericsson products.
Why 5G belongs on the business agenda, not only the network agenda
In the 2018 interview, Hedfors’s central argument was that operators should connect their 5G plans to digital business goals. A faster or more capable network is an input; the executive question is what better services, customer experiences and industry relationships it makes possible.
Hedfors put the point this way: “That is why 5G and Digitalization need to be planned and executed not as individual technology transformation projects, but as one transformation that aligns towards the same overall business objective in each time frame.” The quotation is attributed to Hedfors as it appears in the interview.
For a leadership team, this means putting network investment, customer-facing services, operations, billing and partnerships into a shared roadmap. The aim is not to assume that every 5G capability creates a new business. It is to identify specific customer or industry needs, then decide whether the operator can meet them alone or needs partners.
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What the operator’s role could become
Ericsson’s 2020 technical review of business support systems describes three broad operator roles. They are a useful way to frame strategic choices, not a ranking or a guarantee of results.
| Role | What it emphasizes | Strategic implication |
|---|---|---|
| Network developer | Connectivity as the core product | Compete through network services and the systems needed to sell, support and bill for them. |
| Service enabler | Capabilities such as cloud or edge services and IoT platforms alongside connectivity | Make it easier for customers and partners to build services using the operator’s network and platforms. |
| Service creator | Collaboration beyond telecom, including services developed with other organizations | Take on broader partner relationships and service responsibilities, with corresponding business and operational complexity. |
The review stresses that business support system (BSS) requirements depend on which role an operator chooses. BSS supports activities such as agreements, orders, reporting, invoices and relationships among consumers, enterprise customers, suppliers, partners, platform providers and integrators. In a multi-party service, charging and settlement may need to account for more than one organization. The review discusses these needs from Ericsson’s technical perspective; adopting a platform by itself does not ensure commercial success.
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Where executives should focus
Make the customer journey easier
The interview’s customer-experience agenda spans consumer, business-to-business and business-to-business-to-consumer interactions. Executives should map where customers encounter effort or friction—from discovering and ordering a service to getting help—and prioritize changes that make those touchpoints more accessible and reliable. The interview also links customer expectations to mobile broadband performance, reliability and speed.
It reports that more than 70 percent of consumers identified performance as a leading expectation from 5G, attributing the figure to an Ericsson ConsumerLab report. The interview does not identify the underlying report, sample, geography or field dates, so this figure should be treated as a claim made in that 2018 article, not as a broadly validated current statistic.
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The interview points to possible 5G-related opportunities in manufacturing, energy and utilities, automotive, public safety, media and entertainment, healthcare, financial services, public transport, agriculture and retail. That breadth indicates the range of industries considered; it does not mean that every use case is commercially ready or suited to every operator.
Ericsson’s 2018 guide, prepared with Arthur D. Little, estimated a potential operator revenue opportunity of USD 204–619 billion by 2026 through industry digitalization. This was an estimate of addressable potential, not realized revenue or a sales forecast, and its 2026 horizon is now past. It should not be read as evidence that the opportunity was achieved. The estimate appears in Ericsson’s guide.
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A practical executive screen is to ask what problem the service solves, who pays, which parties must deliver it, and what network, support and charging capabilities it requires. For example, an industrial IoT or edge-enabled service may involve an enterprise customer and specialist partners as well as the operator. Those relationships need to be designed into the offer rather than treated as an afterthought.
Align network evolution with service plans
The 2018 interview recommends simplifying and making networks more programmable, while planning evolution toward 5G Core. It presents these as operator priorities within a broader transformation—not as a current independent audit of network readiness. The executive task is to connect technical changes to intended services and operational needs, so network work does not proceed in isolation from customer and commercial decisions.
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Modernize operations and monetization
New services can bring additional stakeholders, service components and charging relationships. Ericsson’s 2020 review describes BSS needs that can include IoT and edge monetization, multi-party charging and support for partner business models. The business case should therefore account for how the operator will manage orders, agreements, usage, reporting and invoices across the parties involved.
Build a go-to-market and partner model
The interview advises operators to identify industry opportunities, form ecosystems, refine go-to-market and business models, and position existing capabilities for vertical markets. The more an operator moves from selling connectivity toward enabling or creating services, the more important it becomes to clarify partner roles, customer ownership and the responsibilities each party takes on. These are strategic recommendations in a 2018 interview, not evidence that a particular partnership model works in every market.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A practical way to shape the CXO agenda
- Start with a business outcome. State the customer or industry problem the proposed service is meant to solve before choosing technology or platform investments.
- Choose the operator role. Decide whether the organization intends to focus on network development, enable other providers to create services, or collaborate to create services itself. Use that choice to define the capabilities and risks to evaluate.
- Map the full experience and delivery chain. Identify customer touchpoints, internal teams and external parties involved in discovery, ordering, delivery, support and billing.
- Connect network and operational requirements. Determine which programmable network, 5G Core, automation, BSS and charging capabilities the chosen offer requires. Avoid treating a capability as an objective unless it supports the business outcome.
- Test the commercial and partner logic. Establish who pays, how revenue and costs are handled, and how responsibilities work across the operator and partners before scaling an offer.
- Measure the intended result. Set service-specific measures for customer effort, performance, reliability, operational efficiency or commercial results. The cited sources do not prescribe universal targets, so executives need measures suited to their own service and market.
What this agenda does—and does not—establish
The sources support a strategic case for treating 5G and digitalization as connected: customer-facing improvements depend on network and operational capabilities, while industry services can require partner ecosystems and more capable business support. They do not establish current deployment status, present-day market outcomes, prices, market share or the readiness of any particular use case. The interview is from 2018, the revenue estimate is also from 2018, and the BSS review is from 2020. Their value is in framing executive questions, not answering them for every operator today.
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