Kenneth Fredriksen

Hello CEO: Kenneth Fredriksen, Huawei

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Our 1,350 members range from small start-ups with few employees to large multinational companies with thousands of employees around the world. Under the banner "Hello CEO", we gather their views on the past year, their thoughts on the future, but also lessons and experiences from a time unlike any other. Kenneth Fredriksen is Executive Vice President for Central East Europe and Nordic Region at Huawei.

How would you sum up the past year, which was largely marked by the coronavirus pandemic?

- It has been an extraordinary and challenging year in many ways. However, we faced the pandemic early on, with our headquarters located in China. From a European perspective, we were probably better prepared than many others and took action early, for example by mobilizing for an extremely difficult logistics situation. Logistics is important in our industry, given that there are often long lead times for products that we sell and where products have to be shipped from Asia to Europe. We quickly saw an increasing need for digitization solutions and we were able to deliver in the difficult situation we faced as a society. From an industry perspective, it was positive to see what the industry contributed to maintaining important societal functions.

- Our focus has always been on customers and delivering our services, but in Sweden, the situation that has arisen has required us to focus on other things as well, such as explaining and responding to misunderstandings that underlie Huawei's exclusion from the 5G network. When I look back on the year, it is with pride that we have been able to maintain operations and activities in Sweden and deliver to our customers, despite the challenges we have had.

What lessons have you learned and what will you take away?

- The pandemic has made us more flexible in our thinking and helped us become more innovative. The lesson is that you shouldn't be afraid to try new things and that it's not as hard as you think. In spite of the crisis, the country has kept going through things like homework and distance learning. We are incredibly adaptable as a people and a nation.

- Many more people have become part of digitalization and the digital divide has narrowed, as people were forced to adapt and use digital solutions. This will be important in the future, not least from a sustainability perspective and to ensure economic growth in the future.

Looking ahead, how do you see the immediate future?

- Our focus as a company is first and foremost to ensure that both we and our customers get through the final phase of the pandemic safely. But it is also about mobilizing and taking advantage of what we have learned. Digitization will be at the top of the agenda for most companies and it is important that we contribute to the digital investments that need to be made. In the crisis, many organizations have worked without structure and now we need to structure how we use, for example, digital tools. You need to see how you can streamline and find a balance between the virtual and the physical parts and integrate it into the core business.

Have you seen any tangible benefits from your membership of IT&Telecom during the crisis?

- As a company, we believe in collaboration and partnership and in that, IT&Telekomföretagen provides a valuable platform that allows companies to come together and raise our most important issues and help set Sweden's digital agenda forward.