LIVE FROM ERICSSON BUSINESS INNOVATION FORUM 2014, STOCKHOLM: Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg is on a mission to ensure the company is in a position to grow beyond its traditional infrastructure business over the next few years.

Speaking in Stockholm, Vestberg said that mobile and the internet are at an inflection point between a first phase in which infrastructure was put in place and a second phase in which there are opportunities to provide new services.

Historically, companies that put infrastructure in place have missed out on creating new services that run on top of it, but Vestberg said: “Ericsson, we have decided, will win in both phases.”

These services will be based on mobile broadband and cloud, which Vestberg described as “the twenty-first century infrastructure”.

As part of its transformation Ericsson is now speaking to businesses in a range of industries, in addition to its core customer base of mobile operators. These currently include carmakers, utilities companies and transport providers.

“A new way of thinking is needed by a company like us,” the Ericsson CEO noted.

Part of this is clearly a learning process: “We as a company will need to understand how the networks of the future need to be designed,” Vestberg explained.

An early example of Ericsson’s work with non-mobile players is the development with electronics company Philips of a street lamp that contains a mobile transmitter.

Ericsson is currently in the second part of a 10-year strategy, which started with consolidation of its leadership in its core businesses between 2009 and 2013.

Its current aim is to grow the business in targeted areas of IP networks, cloud, OSS/BSS, TV and media, and new industry verticals. The final stage of the strategy, between 2014 to 2020, will see the company move into new areas.

Regarding the final stage, Rima Qureshi, Ericsson’s chief strategist, said: “The objective is that we try things and we decide quickly whether we want to continue or exit that business.”