César Alierta: “Telefónica will be one of the four most important audiovisual content operators in the world”

Telefónica launches 'We choose everything', a new strategic plan aimed at turning the company into an "Onlife Telco" in 2020.

The president of Telefónica, César Alierta, presented this Monday in Madrid the company's strategic plan for the coming years, under the motto We choose everything, with the aim of turning it into an “Onlife Telco”, a company that promotes life connections so that people choose a world of infinite possibilities.

The company is holding its 2015 Telefónica Meeting in Madrid, more ambitious and open than ever, in which the more than 125,000 professionals in the 20 countries where it is present are invited to hear first-hand the messages from the president and the management team through streaming connections.

At the Meeting, Telefónica's management team reviewed the achievements of the Program Be More, implemented throughout the company since July 2013 and based on three decisive axes: Discover, Innovate and Execute. Since its launch, the company has significantly increased its investment effort, reaching historic investment-to-sales ratios. Excluding spectrum, this year alone it will allocate 17% of its income to investments. Be More has contributed decisively to the transformation of Telefónica, turning it into a growing company, with an ambition that has now been redoubled.

The management team also recalled that Telefónica has just closed a stage in which it has led intra-market consolidation in Europe and Brazil, closing large-scale acquisitions such as e-Plus, GVT and Digital +, three operations that create value and generate important synergies that are already being captured.

We choose everything

The new strategic plan is based on six key elements, three for the value proposition (Excellent Connectivity, Comprehensive Offer and Values ​​and Customer Experience) and three enablers, which will be Big Data and Innovation, End-to-End Digitalization and Capital Allocation and Simplification.

Excellent Connectivity, because customers want to always be connected, anywhere and from any device, with the highest quality, and Telefónica can and must respond to that demand thanks to the efforts it has made over the years to transform its fixed and mobile networks.

Comprehensive Offer, composed of a wide range of services and products adapted to the client's needs and even anticipating them, with personalized proposals for individuals and companies.

And all this, with a differential experience based on company values ​​and a public positioning that defends the interests of the client. “Now we are going to go one step further, putting the defense of customer interests at the center of our positioning, which will revolve around three axes: Digital Trust, Open Internet and Digital Access,” Alierta said.

To achieve these three objectives, the company has three enablers: Big Data and innovation, which make it possible to go faster and develop a differential knowledge of the client and their context, to be able to adapt and personalize our services to maximize value for the client; end-to-end digitalization, that is, being a 100% digital company inside and out to offer a distinctive digital experience to customers; and capital allocation and simplification, which means allocating resources to continue advancing the transformation, financing growth, eliminating complexities and meeting committed objectives.

Alierta has stated that "Telefónica will be one of the four most important audiovisual content operators in the world", compared to its competitors are "some Americans who do everything in English" who believe that the rest of the public likes the same thing as them, and "some Australians" who are not very concerned about the content they export outside their borders.

The operator will have the best audiovisual content in the world in Spanish and Portuguese speaking: “We are far ahead of our competitors, because we started earlier,” he stated.

The client, at the center

And with a corporate culture that has to advance around two major pillars: customer orientation and the vocation to be a high-performance and highly committed team.

This commitment is demonstrated with measures such as linking customer satisfaction indices to the variable compensation of employees, which will increase to 20% starting in 2016. Taking into account that 30% of this variable depends on income, which is also a reflection of customer satisfaction with the services they receive, the result is that 50% of the variable compensation of Telefónica professionals will be directly linked to the customer.

In this new stage with redoubled ambition, Telefónica wants to have increasingly satisfied customers thanks to a differential value proposition. "We will grow more in revenue, we will accelerate in OIBDA and we will grow again in cash generation - the president promised -. Our shareholders will be happier and we, as employees, will be even happier."

An era of exponential growth

Telefónica has redoubled its level of ambition, and is entering a new stage of growth, explained the president.

"We are experiencing an authentic revolution... It is not just another revolution. It is already proving to be the one that will have the greatest impact in the history of humanity, in terms of generating wealth. The social development that it entails is going to be more than exponential. And, we, are lucky to be at the center of this revolution. It will be a better future because we have ahead of us an era of change and exponential growth. A new world of possibilities opens up for everyone, anywhere, to create a better world," Alierta said before more than 1,000 executives and in open and live connection for all Group employees.

We are facing an era of change whose basis is digital disruption. A clear example is the arrival of 5G, which will facilitate dizzying connection speeds; the explosion in the number of connections, because not only people will be connected. Wearables, cars, houses, appliances, tablets, clothing, accessories... all objects will have sensors and it is estimated that in 2020 there will be 50 billion connected things. "With everyone and everything connected and based on excellent connectivity, there is no limit to the services of the future. And facilitating these connections, through connectivity, is the core of our business," said Alierta.

This explosion in the number of connections is accompanied by an exponential growth in the volume of data transmitted and traffic circulating through the networks. And this also drives exponential growth in the data generated. Data that, through Big Data, allows us to establish predictive models that are key to predicting customer behavior and improving the functioning of all sectors.

"Digitalization and Big Data are going to change everything, transforming all production models. And it is the key to innovate, to give more value to our clients and to make better business decisions," explained the president. This exponential growth in data links to another of the keys to Telefónica's strategy for the coming years: "Customers have to recover their digital sovereignty, be owners of their digital footprint and consciously decide what use they want to make of their data. Telefónica will always guarantee their privacy and do so with security and transparency. And all this, based on responsible and sustainable business principles."

“Our business has a great positive social impact, contributing to flattening the world and creating wealth and well-being.”

César Alierta also had words of recognition for the professionals who make up Telefónica, "the best human team possible. 125,000 professionals of more than 100 different nationalities, who are, without a doubt, our best asset. That is why we are global in a global world, and, at the same time, above all, local."

At the 2015 Telefónica Meeting, the company 'debuts' a new vision: "Digital life is life, and technology is an essential part of the human being. We want to create, protect and promote the connections of life so that people choose a world of infinite possibilities. And by focusing on people, we aspire to become an Onlife Telco," Alierta concluded.