Written by Will Morey.

I have just returned from an excellent trip to meet with the Ericsson-LG team in Seoul, South Korea, with Grace Lawless, our Operations Director. It has been almost three years since I have been over to meet with the team, and it felt long overdue. It’s a significant investment in time and travel costs to make these meetings happen, but it was so worth it.

The primary purpose of the meeting was to spend time with the R&D team and understand the product vision, strategy and development for the iPECS ONE cloud platform. The innovations and development plans were outstanding, and it was a rare opportunity to hear the thinking of an extremely innovative organisation operating in Korea, one of the most advanced technology markets in the world.

Our team will be sharing much of the planned innovation in the coming weeks and months as we release new software and feature drops. The pace of innovation and breadth of thinking is stunning and reinforces why we partner with Ericsson-LG. The less tangible part of the trip was about relationships and putting time into ensuring our partnership with Ericsson-LG was stronger than ever. This part of the trip was excellent, and the meetings, drinks and team dinners were so much fun. I have tried and eaten foods I would never have thought of and also risked my life to enjoy some rare Korean delicacies.

During the trip, I ate:

  • Old Wrinkled Sea Squirt
  • Sea Pineapple
  • Sea Cucumber
  • Fermented Skateskin
  • Blowfish skin salad
  • Raw Prawns
  • And more sashimi than I thought it possible to consume

The culinary highlight of the trip was the last night when we went to a Blowfish restaurant. Blowfish contains one of the most dangerous neurotoxins that exists, roughly 1200 times more deadly than cyanide. Just the amount on a pinhead is enough to ensure you suffer a painful and horrible death through total paralysis while all your internal systems shut down. We ate raw blowfish and trusted that the chef knew what he was doing. The chef’s training and certification to be able to prepare and serve these fish are significant. I am happy to report that 24 hours later, we are still alive.

The Ericsson-LG team take hosting and welcoming you to Korea very seriously. We were met at the airport and collected by the Global Head of Sales, Ahed Alkhatib and expertly hosted throughout every minute of the trip while the team shared their passion for all things Korean and all things Ericsson-LG. The CEO, Patrick Johansson, joined all of our meetings over the three days and joined us for dinner and shared his enthusiasm and passion for the technology and the business. The R&D, Product Planning, Professional Services and Sales teams had prepared meticulously for our visit. They shared their knowledge, insight and vision for the future patiently and expertly, all in a second language that they have clearly mastered.

The team outlined their vision of the future of iPECS Cloud with iPECS ONE, our WebRTC client firmly at the heart of that vision. In addition, the open API that will ensure we can deliver an increasingly customised user experience and automation of back-end processes for us and our partners. The adoption of AI, sentiment analysis and voice-assisted technologies all featured heavily in the development plans. It demonstrated the absolute focus Ericsson-LG has on delivering a platform that will ensure all our partners can continue winning in their chosen markets.

I want to thank all the members of the Ericsson-LG team for their hosting and hospitality, and their total focus on ensuring all our reseller partners and end-users in the UK have the technology to support their growth and development.

It is clear from this visit and our time together that Ericsson-LG continue to have the culture of innovation and partnership that makes them the very best organisation in the Cloud communications market.