Repositioning for Growth: Expanding into New Enterprise Adjacencies

1. Executive Summary

With its core telecom-infrastructure market maturing, Ericsson set a new growth vector by repositioning as an Industry 4.0 transformation partner. Deep customer immersion, outcome-based messaging, and an ecosystem- and digitally-led go-to-market model unlocked manufacturing, mining, port and utility verticals. The playbook generated roughly US $2.5 billion in new revenue, accelerated first-of-their-kind deals and embedded cross-functional alignment around outcome-centric value propositions.

2. Business Challenge

Ericsson’s core mobile-network revenues were flattening just as 5G and IoT opened doors to Industry 4.0 arenas—manufacturing, ports, mining and utilities—where buyers wanted concrete, outcome-based solutions that advanced digital transformation, not another promise of future-ready connectivity.

Three hurdles blocked the path:

• Credibility gap. While trusted by 500+ communications-service providers (CSPs), Ericsson still looked like a telco vendor to industrial operational-technology executives.
• Carrier-centric go-to-market. Processes, language and incentives were built for coverage-and-capacity solutions, not factory uptime or predictive-maintenance ROI.
• Fragmented proof. Sparse cross-industry references and siloed product teams slowed the co-creation of vertical solutions.

Key question: How can a telecom leader reposition itself as a trusted Industry 4.0 partner that board-level operational-technology executives will entrust with mission-critical operations?

3. Strategic Response

To tackle this challenge, the Enterprise Division team developed a new enterprise value proposition—one that was tightly aligned with Ericsson’s business ambition, rooted in customer needs, and grounded in execution realities. The approach required:

• Strategic reframing of Ericsson’s relevance to industrial buyers
• Customer-led messaging grounded in operational and business outcomes
• An ecosystem- and digitally-led go-to-market model to scale messaging across segments
  The team moved beyond marketing as communication—toward marketing as strategy and market making.

4. Key Initiatives and Execution

• Market Immersion: 30+ structured interviews with industrial buyers, domain partners, and analysts to surface unmet needs
• Customer-Centric Messaging: Created outcome-based narratives tailored to vertical pain points—e.g., remote asset monitoring in mining, port automation, grid resilience in utilities
• Product–Marketing Alignment: Embedded GTM inputs into product development cycles and roadmap prioritization
• Ecosystem- and Digitally-Led GTM: Rejected traditional field-first launch model. Scaled with multichannel content, thought leadership, use case hubs, and targeted digital engagement. Key channel partners were engaged to co-drive the message—not primarily for application delivery, but for credibility and reach
• Cross-Functional Enablement: Built a unified GTM framework for sales, marketing, and business development, with shared metrics and feedback loops

5. Results and Outcomes

6. Frameworks Applied

Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne)

Defined uncontested space by solving for real-time control, predictive maintenance, and autonomous operations—rather than competing on network performance alone.

Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) Theory

Interviews focused on the “jobs” industrial buyers needed to get done—often related to uptime, worker safety, cost predictability, or ESG compliance.

Strategic Innovation Canvas (Christensen et al.)

Positioned 5G and IoT not as features, but as enablers of new business models, use cases, and economic logic in industrial operations.

Core vs. Context (Geoffrey Moore)

Reoriented internal mindset: growth would not come from scaling existing core playbooks, but from building context-specific execution systems.

7. Pitfalls and Lessons Learned

8. Ideal Use Cases

This case is ideal for organizations that aim to:

• Expand beyond legacy markets or products into adjacent, high-potential verticals
• Reposition from product-centric to solution- or outcome-centric messaging
• Align cross-functional teams under a unified GTM framework
• Leverage market immersion and customer discovery to unlock new demand
• Design and scale an ecosystem- and digitally-led launch strategy
  Applicable for:
• Industrial firms moving from analog to digital solutions
• SaaS or telco firms repositioning into verticals
• Infrastructure providers commercializing platforms via ecosystem plays

9. Key Insight

Growth outside your core is a trust game.
Value propositions aren’t declared—they’re earned through relevance, credibility, and co-execution.
Ericsson’s progress in industrial markets wasn’t rooted in the strength of its 5G product, but in its ability to listen, translate, and partner around the customer’s business outcomes.

10. References

• Kim, W.C. & Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue Ocean Strategy
• Ulwick, A. (2005). What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation
• Christensen, C., Johnson, M., & Kagermann, H. (2008). Reinventing Your Business Model, HBR
• Moore, G. (2005). Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution
• Lanning, M. & Michaels, E. (1988). A Business Is a Value Delivery System, McKinsey Quarterly

11. Appendix: Framework Critique and Limitations

Blue Ocean Strategy

Strength: Shifts focus from competition to uncontested value space
Limitation: Can overlook organizational and stakeholder complexity when applied too generically

Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) Theory

Strength: Anchors innovation in customer intent and context
Limitation: Requires disciplined qualitative research and continuous field validation

Strategic Innovation Canvas

Strength: Helps align tech capability with new business model logic
Limitation: Can lead to abstract positioning without strong commercial anchoring

Core vs. Context (Moore)

Strength: Encourages focus on where to innovate vs. where to optimize
Limitation: Difficult to apply if teams aren’t aligned on what counts as core or contextual