Yangon, Asia's future megacity challenges and solutions

Yangon Shwedagon Pagoda

Yangon is Myanmar’s largest city with a population of 5 million. The city has been Myanmar’s commercial and financial capital since colonial times and was its political capital until 2005, when the government moved the capital to Nay Pyi Taw, a new city built in the center of the country. Yangon is an attractive and living city that is on the brink of explosive growth, and is set to become a megacity in the future, with its population expected to reach 10 million by 2040.

The expected growth will put significant strain on a city already struggling to address its decrepit infrastructure and limited services. The multi-domains problems that the city encounters are huge. Only 42 percent of Yangon’s citizens have access to running water. Less than 10 percent of the city has sewage infrastructure. At least 40 percent of city residents survive day to day in informal dwellings. There is a need to solve problems such as frequent power cuts, gridlocked traffic and a shortage of housing and office space. There is a need to develop transportation infrastructure, sanitary waste disposal sites, electrical grids and different urban infrastructure, while at the same time considering the importance of conservation of heritage buildings and century-old colonial architecture.

Tourism is likely to grow dramatically and Yangon is the gateway for tourists to Myanmar. The Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon is one of the most important tourist attractions in the country and on every tourist’s must-see list.

In short, a gigantic work is expected! Probably Asia’s real test bed for smart city projects. It is a fantastic opportunity for city planners, urbanism experts and ICT professionals to take part in this endeavor and deploy urban sustainable solutions in order to make Yangon a smart megacity. ICT can play a major role in contributing with innovative, sustainable solutions to help solve all the current problems and the ones that are expected to pop-up, due to this dramatic change of the city.

Ericsson, -in the  Ericsson Myanmar study report  on the impact of mobile communications-, stated that the “overall impact generated by the mobile communication ecosystem is estimated to be 1.5-7.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over the first three years of operations under a medium penetration (2012-2015). There will be approximately 66,000 full time employees (FTEs) and a further 24,000 FTEs are estimated to be generated in the wider economy”. 

I believe that these figures would be much higher for Yangon when introducing innovative ICT services addressing all business and industrial domains.

The government has formed a committee of relevant agencies to develop a plan including the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) and the national government’s Department of Human Settlements and Housing Development (HSHD).  One of the decisions is to create a new economic hub in Yangon and where the port facilities will be located. A development plan is needed, leveraging from experiences in other Asian cities and embracing new economic models and new technologies. What if ‘Circular Economy’ is a fundamental part of this plan? We already know that ‘Circular Economy’ is already included in future development plans of many cities like port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. See my previous post on Circular Economy in Rotterdam.

Big data analytics, cloud-based services, and M2M-enabled services that intelligently provide real-time inputs will adequately provide smart ICT services. New business models between utility and technology providers can be developed to offer these integrated services.

Yangon is particularly a promising market for ICT service providers. These providers will be asked to create and develop the Yangon city services ecosystem. mHealth enables greater access to healthcare, mEducation will benefit communities. Smart Grid solutions for smart power management, real-time Fleet & Transportation information system will prevent future congestion in the city and the port areas, and so many other services and opportuities.

Yangon is to become a driver in the Myanmar’s economic growth as commercial capital, most important port and tourist destination, and the place for import and export manufacturing.

I really believe that ICT can play a central role in helping Yangon city to avoid becoming another sprawling, polluted and highly congested Asian megacity, but instead helping the city to grow into a greener, smarter and more livable metropolis.

PS: This post is published simultanously in the Ericsson Networked Society blog

From philanthropy to CSR to shared-value to ???...???

There is an ever growing awareness about social challenges for which governments and NGO's lack sufficient capabilities to fully meet them. At the same time, Companies or Businesses are perceived to be prospering at the expense of the broader communities despite increasing CSR activities.

Harvard Professor Michael E. Porter and Mark Kramer came up, in the 2011 McKinsey award winner HBR article, with the concept of Creating Shared Value. Let's have a close look what this is all about. What is the role of companies in communities and how is it evolving?

Prof. Michael Porter's evolution model

It started with Philanthropy

It's harder and harder to do pro-public business activities because supporting business is viewed as a questionable activity. Business has been trying to address these issues with philanthropy. In fact, the first response to business to these societal issues is philanthropy.

Twenty years ago was the question to corporate/companies of "what percentage of your profit do you give to support society? In India they have even passed a law on this with a strong recommendation that businesses should give 2% of their profit to philanthropy, if they don't, they have to say why.
Philanthropy is good. A place to start but philanthropy is not enough... simply because there is not enough money!

The next step is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
CSR is more than just philanthropy, but it includes philanthropy; compliance, understanding the communities standards, citizenship, being a good corporate citizen, and "sustainability" which means a lot of different things that it's hard to define sometimes. It's clear about environmental sustainability but less clear about a broader sustainability. Many corporates have many CSR activities but they do it to be considered a good corporate citizen only.

The next step is Creating Shared Value (CSV)
The more we learn about poverty, healthcare, water, nutrition, about societal issues, the more we see opportunities to use economics or new business models to address these societal issues. Shared value is about creating new markets, new opportunities for growth, and new ways to improve productivity. With CSV, opportunities for disruptive innovations will proliferate. Capturing  these opportunities will require new thinking about market segmentation, customer segmentation,  supply chain management, human resource management, and other management disciplines. Some companies are already redefining strategic positioning around a shared value mindset.

Aligning strategic positioning with shared value opens up fundamentally new ways of thinking  about the business. Shared value opens up a new and far broader opportunity set for companies. Companies that create shared value will gain competitive advantages and superior performance. Finally, it's important to mention here that Shared Value is not about triple bottom line. 

A new type of leadership is required in the 4th industrial revolution

Thousands of books have been written about leadership and leaders, and many theories have been
developed in the fields of management and psychology. To mention one, Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author Peter Drucker stated that “management does things right; leadership does the right things.”


What type of leadership is required to succeed in this new business world, created by the Networked Society, and the ongoing digital transformation of the global economy.? This society will see new market spaces, where cross-industry companies will compete. Because of its openness, its technology based on mobility, cloud and performing networks, because of globalization, free trade and capital movement; the Networked Society will transform and reshape businesses and industries.

So, what leadership and strategy playbook should executives and strategists use?

The competition and the customers have become unpredictable and will be even more so in the future. It will be hard for companies to keep a strong position and defend it for extended periods of time. It means that competitive advantages will no longer be possible to sustain. It also means that companies will have to review their strategies and portfolios, and start building new competitive advantages more often than ‘once a year’.
Leaders in the Networked Society need to constantly start new strategic initiatives. They should care less about market segmentation – because the borders between industries will be blurred – and focus more on the jobs-to-be-done (the Clayton Christensen concept) that are out there for customers.


I think that executives in the Networked Society should have at least the following skills:

- Innovation in their DNA. Have the ability to successfully connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas from different fields and areas.
- Ability to listen to the society, understand the issues and opportunities around sustainable development, and develop a strategy around them.
- A more customer-centric and less industry-bound view. Their methods for evaluating new business opportunities and their approach to innovation should be different.
- Ability to spark continuous change by building an agile organization that can support any new competitive advantage or any new strategic change without ‘pains’.
- A non-narcissistic approach, because leaders must be engaged in initiating questioning conversations in their organizations.
- Ability to make fast and right decisions instead of deliberations and/or consensus finding.
- Discovery-driven. Executives produce uncommon business ideas by scrutinizing common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers.
- Executives in the Networked Society don’t delegate creative work, they do it themselves. Not only do they feel responsible for facilitating the innovation process, but also for coming up with strategic innovations.
- A track record for innovations. Innovation will be a core activity in the Networked Society.

So, are you an executive of the Networked Society era?

This blog has been posted on Ericsson Networked Society blog as well

Business & Industry Transformation, an opportunity for a new business practice

The world – including business, industry, markets, consumers, economies, and the demographic landscape – is changing at a rapid pace. Everything is changing due to globalization, free movement of capital and social factors. In the last decade, new economic powers have emerged, challenging established structures. New corporate giants have emerged too, taking over new market spaces. Industries have been transformed by disruptors’ business models (take the music industry for example). Today, your most important competitor may not even exist in your industry yet. There is massive competition between industries.
Think that Google, Facebook, and Twitter are less than 15 years old (Google recently celebrated its 15 years anniversary). The internet has radically changed our lives. It all started with fixed-network and dial-up services and the best is yet to come with mobile broadband networks in the era of the Networked Society.

The question is what’s next and how do we get there? Do we master the ongoing change process or are we just going with the flow? Are we going to reproduce the same economic concept of open-ended consumption or are we still able to change the course towards a model with more societal development that tackles fundamental social problems while still creating economic value.

By the end of this decade, we will be more than 8 billion humans on this planet. According to our recent Mobility Report, there are over 6.4 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide today, with 130 million new net additions coming in the first quarter of 2013. The economic model we have today is not sustainable. We must start seriously redefining it!

Considering its broad impact on the business landscape and the resulting transformation of industry, the Networked Society represents a tremendous opportunity for a new business practice. It has never been so easy and so ‘cheap’ to start up a new business. Through the increasing number of connected devices, combined with high-performance mobile broadband infrastructure and cloud technology, a large amount of data is now available for processing. This information is helping to prevent disasters, fight poverty, and empower women in poor countries. The sky really is the limit for sustainable business innovations that generate profits for shareholders while at the same time creating significant value for society.

Thankfully, we are starting to see, here and there, initiatives that are driving change towards this mindset. Here are a few examples:

• The shared value initiative spearheaded by Harvard professor, Michael E. Porter.

• A number of institutions have started providing MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). Both MIT and Harvard joined forces to launch the not-for-profit, edX, a free and open online platform. You can imagine the impact that this initiative would have on student communities in Africa. Students who historically couldn’t even afford to join an African school, suddenly can follow a curriculum at one of the most prestigious school on earth. And all of it for free! And all over a mobile broadband network.

• The Coca-Cola Company with partners, NGOs and companies, launched a water purification system housed within the community center to help provide communities in need with access to safe drinking water and other basic necessities. Through this commitment, they aim to deliver 500 million liters of safe drinking water, while promoting greater local development in communities that need it most.

• And finally, Ericsson has made the commitment to step up efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals. This is based on a strong belief that ICT can make this happen and is happening through a multitude of actions and collaborations. Here are just a few:

• Together with Refugees United, we have developed an application for mobile phones that help to find missing loved ones who have been separated by conflict or disaster – sometime for years.
• Another example is Ushahidi, a website that was developed using crowd sourcing to map reports of violence that occurred in 2008 in Kenya following the country’s 2007 elections.
• Active participation in UN Broadband commission with co-writing the report on Transformative Solutions for 2015 and beyond.

These examples are just a few of the reasons I truly believe that the Networked Society can be a driver of economic growth and societal development in this all communicating world.

This post has been published simultaneously on the Ericsson Networked Society Blog.

Amsterdam bicycles make the city smarter

From its humble beginnings as a 13th-century fishing village, Amsterdam today is a major hub for business, tourism and culture and has a long and well-respected tradition in the arts. In this post I’ll talk about some of Amsterdam’s ambitious plans for making urban life smarter.

A little history about Amsterdam: In 1323, the city owned the exclusive right to import beer from Hamburg while at the same time the herring trade grew rapidly allowing fishermen to increase profits. In 1602, the Dutch East India Company was founded which the city owned a majority share in. The 17th century was a period of unprecedented prosperity during which Amsterdam underwent massive urban development resulting in, among other things, its famous canal system. Art also flourished during this time and the number of artists, art dealers, as well as the amount of art produced, grew enormously. Amsterdam had become a thriving cultural city, producing masters such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer and Jan Steen.

Today, Amsterdam is a metropolis of more than 800,000 inhabitants (excluding the suburbs) with nearly 12 million international tourists visiting the city in 2012. It is also a smart city, where fiber, broadband and LTE networks are widely deployed and where anyone can enjoy free Wi-Fi access anywhere in the city.

Many initiatives for making the city smarter have been launched in recent years. One of them is the Amsterdam Smart City (ASC) spearheaded by the Amsterdam Economic Board, the City of Amsterdam and various private business interests. It’s a partnership between businesses, government, research institutions and the citizens of Amsterdam to develop the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area into a smarter city.

ASC connects the needs and wishes of users, residents, government and business and provides a platform for testing innovative products and services. By establishing the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area as an urban living lab, ASC has made it possible for businesses to test and demonstrate innovative products and services.

Many of these projects have already been launched. One of the most original is Ring-Ring. Amsterdam is known for its biking tradition (there are more bicycles than inhabitants in the city) and cyclists make a significant contribution to city health, clean air, social interaction, improved accessibility and a more pleasant public space. Ring-Ring rewards every cyclist for each kilometer cycled! With an innovative technique, the smartphone app counts all the cycled kilometers (Fkm) automatically. Each Fkm = € 0.10. The Fkm that are saved can be redeemed, using the app, at a Ring-Ring affiliated connected business, which are good for making purchases or for getting discounts on products or services.

This is a great example of innovation – empowered by ICT, technology and people – in order to reduce carbon emission and make the city life much better.

This post has been published simultaneously in the Ericsson Networked Society blog as well.

Here’s how ICT makes Jakarta gets smart

With a population of about 9.6 million, Jakarta is the largest city in Indonesia as well as its capital. It’s the country’s economic, cultural and political center and is experiencing rapid urbanization even in the peripheral areas. It’s the most populous city in Southeast Asia and is the tenth-largest city in the world. In short, it’s a megacity – full of hope, optimism, generosity and cultural diversity. In this post, I’d like to take a closer look at how ICT is helping to make Jakarta a smart city as well.

In 2010, the Indonesian telecom market hit its saturation point. With 278 million subscribers, Indonesia is the 4th largest mobile market in the world and the world’s top-ten 3G market. The rapid adoption of smartphones has pushed mobile operators to become key players in the internet sector. By 2015, it is foretasted that smartphones will represent around 40 percent of all handsets in Indonesia. Mobile operators are pushing data services with big advertising budgets – a move that has been helped by declining device and subscription prices.

Like most megacities, Jakarta is struggling to meet the transportation needs of its people. Frustration with Jakarta’s traffic congestion is a daily discussion point for Jakartans. First-time visitors are confronted with the problem the moment they leave the airport. A taxi driver told me once that the average car speed in the city is less than 10 km/h.

Many initiatives are already ongoing to tackle transportation and traffic problems. Of course, additional investment in transportation equipment and infrastructure is needed but these problems can often be solved, or at least mitigated, by providing real-time visibility into traffic elements in order to dynamically optimize existing transportation resources and inform users of the state of traffic in the city.

But who can provide and process this large volume of dynamic data other than ICT sector? With a widespread mobile broadband network, an information system could dynamically push location-based information to city dwellers and commuters as part of a smart mobility ICT solution. However, Jakarta citizens and commuters also need to be engaged, informed and held accountable for this change as well.

Another interesting case is power supply availability. Electricity is not evenly distributed throughout Jakarta. Street vendors use illegal and dangerous electricity connections while working at night. The state electricity company, PLN, is piloting a new program where street vendors can buy small, affordable amounts of electricity through a coin-operated device. When they run out, they can top up with another coin, like using a pay phone. By adding M2M features to the device, PLN will be able to operate its smart wireless device remotely and collect usability information in real-time.
However, a smart city isn’t just about ICT and technology. it’s also about human and social capital, and about educating the urban population. To be successful, a smart city initiative must be a inclusive and democratic program that is embraced by Jakarta’s citizens. That is how citizens can together shape their future.

From an ICT and business perspective, big data analytics, cloud-based services, and M2M-enabled services that intelligently provide real-time inputs will adequately provide smart ICT solutions. New business models between utility and technology providers can be developed to offer these integrated services. Funding mechanisms will be needed and governmental and public-private partnerships are probably the most suitable project models.

Jakarta, the smart city, is a very promising market for service providers. It’s a city that will rely on these providers’ ability to innovate and tap into each other’s industries while taking on multiple roles in the ecosystem.

This post is also published here on the Ericsson Networked Society Blog.

Book review: The End of Competitive Advantage!

What do Nokia, Kodak, Blackberry have in common? Both thought that their competitive advantage was there to stay for ages, but did not see the ongoing changes in the market and the related industry.

Interesting book from a smart lady!
Author McGrath argues that businesses must stop basing their strategies on the idea of sustainable competitive advantage, because competitive advantage is dead! says McGrath. Instead, businesses should focus on pursuing short-lived opportunities with speed and decisiveness.

Today, the most important competitor you have may not even exist in your industry. Industries face massive competition from different industries.The book was based on a series of case studies considering world’s largest companies. Only 8% of world’s largest companies could sustain 5% growth for 5 years in a row. Only 10 companies had been able to sustain 10% growth over year.Tsingtao, ACS, Indra, Atmos Energy, Infosys, Cognizant, Yahoo Japan, KRKA, Factset and HDFC Bank.Why?

McGrath recommends  a new playbook for strategy as summarized below:

1 - Continuous Reconfiguration
Businesses have to be good at executing the traditional stuff but they also have to be in a state of continuous reconfiguration. Be aware of, hypersensitive to, the environment around you.
Verizon – often spooked analysts by discarding existing highly profitable business units and focusing on longer term growth areas. Has paid off in long terms as others have stuck with existing businesses that eventually fail.
Pallet manufacturer and distributor Brambles found supermarkets has major issue with handling of e.g. soft fruit. Developed packages that are picked and packed into trays directly. Reduces handling significantly and gets product to market faster. Don’t think of themselves as a pallet distributor, see themselves as solving logistic challenges for customers.

2 - Healthy disengagement
How do you recognize when things need to change before it is too late to do something about it?

3 - Deft resource allocation
Powerful people control where the resources go in businesses. They tend to be senior within companies and want to support the status quo – Blackberry’s vast spend on relaunch of BB10 for example. The allocation of resources for the future has to be separated from the people who control the existing profitable lines.

4 - Innovation Proficiency
Innovation today has to happen faster and more routinely than at times in the past. It cannot be episodic.

5 - New leadership mindset
More open, candid. “Don’t bring me any surprises” “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions”. It means the executives only hear about the stuff that really matters when it is obvious to everyone. People in the executive suites need to be more willing to embrace uncertainty and surprises.

Mobile broadband + emerging markets = disruptive innovations

see my article published here 

Circular economy in smart city Rotterdam, the Netherlands

The circular economy is a new concept for building a new economy that’s regenerated by design. Nothing is lost, everything is transformed. Moving away from linear transformation process, based on ‘Take-> Make->Dispose’ to a circular process where waste becomes input.  What is the relation with the city of Rotterdam? This post introduces a case of circular economy vision in the city of Rotterdam; and is also a call for discussion and idea sharing around this topic with the readers and the Networked Society ecosystem members.

Erasmus Bridge Rotterdam 

Rotterdam is a charming, young, dynamic and international city. It is the home of internationally acclaimed renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus that has given his name to a popular European education program. Rotterdam is a world city and a world port, where more than 30% of Europe import/export goods transits. The port of Rotterdam is the most important industrial cluster and the largest logistics hub in Europe. It hosts many corporates headquarters and/or regional hubs. Rotterdam is also a smart city, where fiber, broadband and LTE networks are largely deployed. Anyone can enjoy free WiFi access everywhere in the city and a variety of services are offered on mobile devices. 

Many initiatives for building a smarter Rotterdam are launched from public and private sectors and are supported by the city council. Innovations -empowered by ICT- in healthcare, transportation are surging and encouraged in order to make Rotterdam city life easier. 

Because of the fragile geological state of the Netherlands (below sea level and permanently under threat of flooding), the Dutch people have developed - earlier than anyone else - the awareness about mother nature and its ecosystem. They have embraced sustainable technologies and practices, and now use ICT to reduce carbon emissions and industrial waste. 

One the most ambitious, groundbreaking and visionary project driven by the port of Rotterdam –truly the heartbeat of the city of Rotterdam - is the strategic vision of implementing the circular economy framework to this gigantic industrial cluster by 2030.This strategy is a call for all ICT players and the Networked Society ecosystem to take part in this activity, and spot the opportunities; by providing innovative ICT solutions and business models across all industries domains; fleet management, smart grids for electricity, bio-based industry, etc.

Many consulting companies are already on the starting blocks to provide their expertise and services.Ericsson, with its global professional services organization, its global network of consultants, its cutting-edge sustainable portfolio and its global footprints in ICT solutions can be a strong partner that can deliver great values to the port of Rotterdam 2030 vision.

Blue Ocean Strategy in the Networked Society – European Operator, Part I

The European operator operates in a saturated market with over 140% mobile penetration, with highly competing operators who provide telephony, internet, TV, broadband, cloud and M2M services. The market includes many active MVNO’s competing fiercely on price and putting a lot of pressure on incumbent operators. A price war and increased use of OTT services added to a very demanding customer base using multiple devices makes the market extremely competitive.
This is what is called a Red Ocean market.

 The Red Ocean Strategy Canvas looks as follows:

 1. Price: Competitive prices are offered by all operators. MVNO’s are very aggressive offering prices below market’s standard; which oblige incumbents to follow and adjust their offerings.

 2. Services portfolio: Internet access, TV, Voice & Video calls, SMS/MMS are the main revenue streams. Operators are still heavily charging for calls and SMS. On the other hand, OTT services are eating up some of these SMS/Voice revenues. Operators are trying to stop this intruded competition by offering packages with free SMS and/or free minutes.

3. Network performance: The QoS is an important differentiator, and operators are investing more and more in 3G and the development of the new LTE network. As long as the mobile traffic demand will continue unabated, network investments will continue as well.

4. OSS/BSS investment: Operators are investing in the BSS because of the increased numbers of new services and new devices.

 5. Brand: Another important differentiator; operators promote their offerings and brand through costly marketing campaigns in different Medias. They also started to be more active in the social media.

 6. International calls: are still charged expensively, but for how long?

 7. Handsets subsidies & SIMonly (or BYOD): In order to attract and lock new subscribers, operators are still subsidizing handsets. At the same time, in order to counter MVNO’s –who offer BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) – most of them offers what they call SIMonly package.

 8. Cloud services: Mainly backup services are offered to lock in subscribers.

9. Different tariff plans: Many different tariff plans for different services and for different countries.

 10. M2M: Still in its infancy but most of the operators pretend to have an M2M offering for different business domains.

And here is the Red ocean strategy canvas:

Red ocean - European operator