TAKING 5G TO THE NEXT LEVEL: ERICSSON DYNAMIC END-USER BOOST
5G might not always feel like 5G, especially in densely populated areas. Dynamic End-user Boost (DEB) enables mobile phone users to optimize their quality of experience in real time, even in busy environments. With Kevin's leadership, DEB was successfully launched within 2 years, leading to a $140 million increase in revenue.
MY ROLE
I led our multi-disciplinary team to drive the app from early conception to MVP and launch in 10+ countries in Asia. I worked closely with business leadership to understand the market landscape and identify innovation opportunities, design teams to eliminate user friction, and engineers to define and develop technical requirements. 5G operates within a heavy security, privacy and regulatory framework, and I collaborated closely with security team to ensure that or products were compliant.
Since our team was small with limited resources, I leveraged my data science background to hypothesize, design and analyze experiments to validate product ideas. I also used our team size as an opportunity to hone my written and presentation skills, producing excellent product documentation and demonstrations to key stakeholders.
THE PRODUCT
The picture above shows the real product being used by a customer to "boost" their Microsoft Teams app. In high density areas with low connectivity, the Dynamic End-user Boost (DEB) app is the first of its kind in the world, and can temporarily enhance 5G performance to allow users to complete their tasks. Depending on the plan chosen by the customer, the user can improve 5G connectivity either on their device or specific apps.
THE MARKET
5G is a trillion-dollar opportunity with hundreds of millions of users across the world, and the number of users continue to grow every day. Here are key takeaways about the 5G market:
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5G could have a total addressable market of $1.7 trillion by 2030
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5G subscribers could reach 6 billion by 2030
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Telecom service providers could expect 34% higher ARPU by mobilizing 5G efforts
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Increasing 5G connectivity could result in 4x customer satisfaction ratings
PROBLEM ---> OPPORTUNITY
Through user studies, customer pain points during cellular use were identified. The most pressing pain point was the inability to complete online tasks in crowded areas such as festivals or sporting events. This pain point had impacted not only the end-user, but multiple stakeholders. Some key consequences are:
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Dissatisfaction from paying 5G subscriber
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Mobile carrier suffers loss of trust
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App providers lose out on app engagement and potential revenue opportunities
Predicting when and where mobile traffic can hamper connectivity depends on various factors, but by leveraging Ericsson's 5G infrastructure and mobile phone capabilities, customers can easily boost their quality of signal (QoS) using the DEB app. This presents an opportunity to monetize on 5G and enhance customer satisfaction.
SAMPLE USE CASE AND USER JOURNEY
*This is a mock up user persona and user journey due to confidentiality agreements
Although each phase has a process owner, the key is cross-collaboration with different teams such as Product, Technical Writers, Marketing, Engineering to ensure that the process owner has the necessary information and support to execute each phase successfully.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: MVP and LAUNCH
The product was launched through iterative processes and repeated cycles of feature prioritization, product roadmapping, development, experimentation, and user feedback. Teams worked collaboratively to devise go-to-market strategy, sales funnel, pricing plan, and early adopters.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Learned to influence with data not power and stakeholder management as I led experiments to validate hypotheses and gain support
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Enhanced written and communication skills as I wrote epics and user stories and crafted presentations
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Fostered an inclusive and diverse environment by working with multi-cultural teams across different time zones
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Acquired excellent technical skills as I learned the ins and outs of CI/CD, Spring Web, Containerization, Deployment, High and Low Level Design