Jean Marc Vignolles considers it “vital” for the CNMC to update content regulation

The CEO of Orange Spain and Jazztel Spain maintains that content regulation in Spain is currently in an “unsustainable” situation of “almost monopoly”, “unique in Europe”, which could lead to “contaminating competition in other telecommunications markets”.

On the second day of the 29th Telecommunication and Digital Economy Meeting held this week in Santander, the CEO of Orange Spain and Jazztel Spain, Jean Marc Vignolles, analyzed the situation of the content market in Spain. In his opinion, it is "vital" that the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) update the regulation on content that in Spain is currently in an "unsustainable" situation of "almost monopoly", "unique in Europe" in his words, and that can lead to "polluting competition in other telecommunications markets."

For Vignolles, who said he was speaking in public for the first time after the purchase of Jazztel by Orange, the Spanish market “has moved ahead of others in Europe” in phenomena such as the “spectacular rise” of convergent offering (landline, mobile and television telephony together), with two-thirds of new broadband additions of a convergent nature. Spain is also ahead of other countries in the take-off of super broadband. Finally, he pointed out that “the pay television market has completely turned around” in Spain.

However, the CEO of Orange Spain and Jazztel Spain assured that his company is in “an optimal situation” to compete in this environment and become the “alternative operator in Spain” (it is already the second by volume of total clients). Vignolles added that they will soon provide personalized mobile banking services in Spain and France, with a financial partner.

The fifth technological revolution

La directora de la División de Telecomunicaciones, Medios y Servicios de Altran España y Latam, Ana Mosquera, ha afirmado que actualmente vivimos una quinta revolución tecnológica, de la que hay que “aprovechar” su “florecimiento” y “estar despiertos” para la sexta. Así, ha explicado las diferentes eras tecnológicas de la Historia, comenzando con la Revolución Industrial; la era del vapor y los ferrocarriles; la era del acero, la electricidad y la ingeniería pesada; la era del petróleo, el automóvil y la producción en masa, y, finalmente, la era de las telecomunicaciones.

According to the expert, all revolutions have the same phases, from the first impact to the “bonanza”, passing through years of “turbulence” and “synergies”, the era in which we are now. The first period is that of installation, with a time of emergence and then frenzy. Then there is another time of “rearrangement, crisis and recession” of the industries involved, where many of them disappear, and where, in addition, institutions begin to wonder “what is happening.” Next comes the period of deployment, the aforementioned time of synergy, in which institutions “begin to shape the framework that the revolution needs.” The fifth and final phase is that of maturity, in which we can “begin to glimpse the next transformation.”

Mosquera has also analyzed the report “Value migrations in ICT and media in Europe”, carried out by Altran, which analyzes 41 European, American and Asian companies from 2004 to 2014. As general results, telecommunications operators have seen their value decrease; Internet companies (OTTs) have multiplied their participation by three, and IT companies, on the other hand, have seen their participation reduce by 30%. In

Thus, terminal suppliers and OTTs are the ones that have increased their participation the most. Despite the reduction in value of telecommunications operators, the expert has pointed out that the European Commission has already introduced regulatory improvements, very similar to those of 2006 in the US. In addition, she has been positive by stating that “it finally looks good for Europe” in technological leadership.

Financing for R&D&i

The Center for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI) will see its funds increased by 30 million in 2016 within the corresponding item in the General State Budgets that are now being designed, as announced yesterday in Santander by its general director, Francisco Marín, who advanced some of the new features that the CDTI will implement in the next year. This figure will be added to the 1,700 million “mobilized” in 2015, the sum of direct funds (1,000 million) and the amount raised from abroad (700 million).

For Marín, with just a few months in office, the entity showed "a certain complacency" that is intended to be combated with three measures of "accelerated change": exploring new mechanisms to help business R&D&I, going out "in search of business initiatives before they become one" and a greater effort in the internationalization of SMEs.

The general director of the CDTI explained that currently the center has executed 53% of its budget for 2015 and highlighted that, "despite a slow curve in the first months of the year", the demand for financing has grown by 5%." Another of the CDTI activities reviewed by Marín has been better attention to SMEs, which had more restricted access to financing due to their "damaged balance sheets" - in his words - by the crisis, and which has resulted in a reduction of 80% guarantees for projects of excellence.

On a negative note, the head of the CDTI was concerned about the imbalance that exists in the participation of the different autonomous communities in the center's projects, with regions with very low volumes of funds obtained.

Smart communities

The president of the Smart Cities Commission of CEOE and AMETIC and president of the Inercia Alliance, Adolfo Borrero, has been in charge of moderating the first round table of the day on Smart Communities, which, as he has stated, follows the line of the one held yesterday afternoon in which the mayor of Santander, Íñigo de la Serna, participated.

Thus, the general director of Red.es, Daniel Noguera, highlighted in his speech the National Plan for Smart Cities, which forms a network of more than 600 Spanish cities and has a budget of more than 188 million euros. The central axes of this plan are citizens and industry, and its objectives are to increase the contribution of ICT to the GDP of the industrial sector and improve efficiency in the provision of services based on ICT, among others.

As he has indicated, a smart city must be “efficient” and “friendly”, and he has insisted that its complexity will be reduced through the “intensive use” of ICT. “In order for them to be intelligent, they have to be digitalized,” Noguera stressed.

In addition, he explained that Red.es has three specific actions, the first and second call for Smart Cities, and the first call for Smart Islands. Thus, the first call for Smart Cities had a budget of 15 million euros, 37 initiatives were presented and 13 were selected; All of them had “high support” from the industrial sector and society. Its beneficiaries were cities in Extremadura, Castilla La Mancha and Andalusia.

La segunda convocatoria de Ciudades Inteligentes es “más ambiciosa” y busca “mayor interoperabilidad entre plataformas”, según Noguera. El presupuesto se eleva a 48 millones de euros y sus beneficiarios serán entidades locales de más de 20.000 habitantes, como ayuntamientos, diputaciones, mancomunidades, cabildos y consells, así como comunidades autónomas uniprovinciales.

La primera convocatoria de Islas Inteligentes, por su parte, tiene destinado un presupuesto de 30 millones de euros y se basa en subvención al 100 %. Los beneficiarios podrán ser administraciones locales que gestionen servicios públicos en la totalidad del territorio de las islas pertenecientes a Canarias e Islas Baleares.

The president of the Cabildo of Tenerife, Carlos Enrique Alonso, also participated in the round table, stating that the digital strategies of cities “are not an end”, but rather an “axis of work” with a “long journey” adapted to the development of the industry and citizens.

Thus, Alonso explained that Tenerife's strategic plan is articulated in the so-called Tenerife3i, and has the year 2030 as its horizon. In addition, he compared it with the video game Minecraft to exemplify the island's strategy. Thus, Tenerife bases this strategy on a grid, like the game, to “have everything interconnected.” In addition, it is committed to an OpenData plan, where the data would be the bricks that the user uses in Minecraft. One of the final objectives of the plan is, therefore, to generate an “open” environment so that the island is “friendlier.”

For his part, the first deputy mayor and delegate of the Innovation and New Technologies and Security Area of ​​the Malaga City Council, Mario Cortés, has shared the experience of the Smart Costa del Sol project, which seeks to coordinate the information and services of 15 municipalities and covers 165 kilometers.

As indicated, this project had several challenges associated with tourism, such as overcrowding on roads and accesses to cities; the crowding on the beaches; the increase in demand for public transport; the generation of waste and the large number of nationalities that converge in that area. Thus, the objective is to unite services seeking “optimization” and “tourist excellence.” They needed, therefore, a management platform to integrate all these existing services into a “unified dashboard.”

Now, through Smart Costa del Sol, they offer smart parking; energy efficiency in buildings; efficient public lighting; irrigation management; installation of sensors and cameras on beaches, and analysis and monitoring of tourist flows, among others.

Finally, the deputy general director of Telefónica, Marieta del Rivero, stated during her speech at the round table that it is now the cities that have to “catch up” with citizens in the current technological revolution. Furthermore, he assured that Smart Communities are a “great opportunity” to transform society, but it must be taken into account that their inhabitants “do not simply want to be managed”, but rather participate.

The directive has also highlighted that this process of digitalization and modernization must be led by the cities themselves, "strategic", and that it lasts over time, beyond the four years of each political legislature.

Furthermore, as explained by Del Rivero, the "key" initiatives for Smart Cities are that Europeans' data "can travel beyond their borders", and interoperability, that is, that city platforms communicate with each other. In this sense, he highlighted a European initiative in which more than 50 cities have already joined forces.

Industry 4.0: opportunities and threats

For the Secretary General of Industry, Begoña Cristeto, in charge of the round table on the industrial sector, “industry 4.0 is not an option” but rather the only way forward for one of the main sectors of the Spanish economy, since “we are in the 4th industrial revolution.” Cristeto emphasized the new business opportunities that the application of smart technologies opens for the factories themselves and for the companies that supply them, but added that "also for new players who will be able to access sectors previously dominated by certain companies", as has already happened with WhatsApp and telephone operators.

His round table companions, the executive president of Radiotrans, Alfonso Alarcos Capellán; the director of Innovation and Business Development of Sisteplant, Alfonso Ganzábal; and the director of the Industry and Transportation Division of Tecnalia, Agustín Sáenz, agreed with her in this statement: industry 4.0 represents both an opportunity and a threat.

Ganzábal was emphatic in warning of the risk of “being left out” of this revolution and in defending his concept of industry 4.0, “whose body is deeply technological” but which requires “technology to know what is happening and also to understand it and reinvent what we are doing.” In this sense, he defended the human level of this change and advocated training people to acquire the knowledge to work in this new environment and make use of this technology.

Agustín Alarcos, from Radiotrans, suggested that the change that the industry must face is “more serious” for small and medium-sized companies when it comes to making the leap towards industry 4.0. Agustín Sáenz, from Tecnalia, expressed himself in similar terms, speaking of the “cultural shock that occurs when suggesting to managers in the industrial sector that they collaborate with a startup created by kids in their early twenties who play games” since “it is a new world for them, for the pure industrial sector.”

The Secretary General of Industry recalled that the Spanish Government is working on the Industry Digitalization Plan, so as not to fall behind other countries in the European environment, such as Germany and France, which are ahead of Spain, and highlighted the pioneering role in industry 4.0 that the Basque Country is playing.

Digital Single Market

The Undersecretary of Economy and Competitiveness, Miguel Temboury, was in charge of ending the morning session of the third day of the 29th Telecommunications and Digital Economy Meeting “Strategies for the digital single market” in Santander. Temboury has stated that Spain's economic prospects are today "much better" than in recent years "thanks to the measures undertaken" by the Government. Thus, the growth in the first half of the year, the fall in financing costs and the increase in new credit have stood out. It has also highlighted the growth rate of foreign investments and consumption.

Entre los desafíos a los que se enfrentan todavía, citó la reducción de la tasa de paro. Según ha subrayado, en los últimos meses se han generado más de 400.000 nuevos empleos creados “a pesar” de la alta tasa de desempleo, en la que hay “seguir avanzando” para disminuir.

The Undersecretary of Economy and Competitiveness has also highlighted the importance of the digital single market, the central point of the meeting. Among other things, he has pointed out that legislation cannot be “hindering” the new reality that the technological revolution has produced. Therefore, various regulatory problems must be overcome to create jobs and offer “cheaper and more competitive” services.

Benefits and difficulties of big data

The director of Business Applications Services at Fujitsu, Juan Angulo López-Dóriga, has defined the Big Data system as a set of technologies that extract, store, process and analyze a large volume of data at a “very high” speed. Therefore, Big Data refers to volume, speed, variety of sources and incremental value. Among its benefits, the expert has highlighted the immediacy of the results, which will help decision-making as they occur in real time. In his opinion, “data is going to be the new oil of society.”

The structure of this Big Data system must contain data integration, transformation and information monitoring; massive real-time processing or storage; availability of data transferred or sold, considering that data as an “asset”, and a visualization of that data in textual or graphic form.

The manager has pointed out that to “successfully” implement this system “it is necessary to first identify the benefits and difficulties” of this action and design on technological bases that allow for more extensive exploitation of the data. “We have the solution, but first we must define the problem,” he stressed.

In addition, a series of practices must be carried out for this implementation, such as aligning Big Data objectives with those of the business; start with small and limited projects; use cloud services; associate Big Data with company data, and review management processes and policies.

Fintech

The general director of the banking and insurance sector at Tecnocom, Javier Rey, suggested today during the round table dedicated to discussing fintech that "if banking does not react, it could become a commodity", since in his opinion an "irreversible change" is taking place in the financial business with new digital consumers, new agents close to technology and traditional financial entities "in a crisis situation."

“They must adapt to a collaborative and co-petition environment,” he explained, in which “there will be alliances with some of these new actors” and encouraged banks to “coexist, transform and converge in the new framework of financial services.”

The second to speak was Marta Plana, co-founder and general counsel of Digital Origin, a fintech founded in London in 2011 that operates exclusively in the Spanish market and which has just obtained a first round of financing of 15 million euros worth 30% of the company. Digital Origin, one of the best startups of 2015, is an online banking services platform that has adopted the British code of good practice for its sector.

Despite this, Plana, who was confident that these new players can have a space in Spain, stated that she wants state regulation of fintech that "allows them to act with transparency and confidence." “We need common rules of the game that allow us to grow and give security to users,” he added. In addition, he defined Digital Origin and other fintech companies as “competitors, but also collaborators.”

The president and founder of Avatarbtc, José Luis Várez, explained that bitcoin “was born from a customer need to which a businessman must respond.” Várez gave the example of the 3 million Chinese who will be born in the future, who will not need a bank branch because they will have a cell phone in their pocket. However, he clarified that "if the user does not perceive that there are practical solutions that are close to their ordinary life, bitcoin will not interest them." Likewise, the virtual currency “must coexist with the financial system.”

The representative of e-LaCaixa, David Urbano, agreed that “the financial ecosystem is changing” and that “the traditional bank has to adapt to this new digital environment.” In his opinion, it enjoys advantages over other actors, such as customer trust, extensive know-how, a broad product portfolio and a regulated environment that gives guarantees to the user. Urbano also pointed out that "Spanish banking is a global benchmark in digitalization, with leaders such as LaCaixa, BBVA or Santander at the forefront."

The CIO of BBVA, José Olalla Hevia, who agreed with Urbano that "Spanish banking can teach a lot in digitalization to entities in other countries", stressed that - in his personal opinion and in relation to fintech - "in banking, no substitute product has appeared as happened with the mp3 in music; we do not have any WhatsApp for financial services on the table", which is why he confessed to being "skeptical" about it.

Likewise, Ollala was convinced that banking “has to transform no matter what” to face the objective fact that the client is increasingly digital, more multichannel and demands native apps, to which is added the appearance of new agents in the market. In the case of BBVA, this transformation involves being leaders in Net Promoter Score (NPS), creating business in digital channels, changing the company's mentality to foster digital talent and develop new digital businesses based on technological and knowledge assets.