written by Grace Lawless
I’ve just returned from an inspiring 3-day visit with Will Morey, EnableX CEO and the Commercial and Technical teams at Ericsson-LG in Seoul, South Korea. The purpose of our visit was threefold; to continue to build the fantastic partnership Pragma has had with Ericsson-LG for over 10 years, to share the needs of customers in the UK market as an input to the platform roadmap, and to discuss the medium and long term vision for the platform.
This is the first time I’ve visited South Korea and my first experience of the amazing welcome and hosting skills that the Koreans love to give to all their guests. The amount of preparation put in and expertise the Ericsson-LG team had was clearly evident in every aspect of our 3-day visit.
We did a deep dive into the product roadmap covering everything from how we can innovate and continuously improve our robust process for rolling out upgrades and new features on the market to the customer first, operational excellence requirements for both provisioning and data analysis. We then worked with the R&D team to identify how we prepare for the future scale within our infrastructure, ensuring we continue to deliver a robust, secure cloud platform for 200k subscribers and beyond in the future.
It was absolutely fascinating to learn about Korean culture. There were many of the same challenges we have in the UK (hiring is a global challenge!) and many small differences. Ericsson-LG provides employees with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Lunch is at midday for everybody, so the office lights are automatically turned off as no one is at their desks! Amusing for us, as we hadn’t expected to suddenly find the lights had turned off! The toilets are extremely high-tech with a button-filled panel on the side which controls a bidet and ‘air-dryer’. I decided against the temptation of pushing buttons to see what happens, as I didn’t want to risk returning to the meeting looking like I’d walked through a shower fully clothed!
The food was also an adventure as there are many food types that you can’t find in the UK. Brian, our global Account Manager, had gone to extensive trouble to find restaurants that could serve fish as neither Will nor I eat meat. This meant we had the opportunity to try sea creatures I hadn’t even heard of before. Sashimi is served in a very different way in Korea. You order a main course for the table, and then the restaurant brings many tapas-style small dishes which everyone shares. We had over 20 courses in one meal – and then the main course is served! To say we were full is an understatement. And we had plenty of practice time with the longer metal Korean-style chopsticks.
As this was my first visit, I had the opportunity to spend my 3rd day exploring the many beautiful and ancient sites in Seoul. I walked 19,000 steps in 10 miles through a mix of monsoon weather and very warm sunshine and saw; the Blue House (equivalent to the US White House), the beautiful Gyeongbokgung palace, many modern technically interactive installations in the National Folk Museum, ancient wooden houses in Bukchon, beautiful antiques and art in Insadong, the impressive Gwanghwamun Gate and the refreshing Cheonggyecheon stream where many people sit with their feet dangling in the fast flowing water to cool down.
The entire trip was full of learnings, partnership, ancient customs, modern technology, collaboration, laughter and friendship. What an incredible experience. It’s always good to be home, but I can’t wait to go back!
