Telefónica Group has decided to combine its Telefónica I+D and Telefónica Digital to create a unified banner under the Telefónica Digital Innovation brand. In this way, the telecommunications group combines the assets of its two divisions to create a business that plans to accelerate the group’s digital services, introducing new products and services for internal use.
The new company, under the direction of Telefónica’s Chief Digital Officer (CTO) Sema Alonso, expects to formalize its constitution by the end of the year. As elEconomista.es has learned, the new merged subsidiary will bring together the assets of Telefónica I+D and Telefónica Digital, with about a thousand employees, all highly qualified, mostly engineers. The major challenge of this company consists of utilizing all kinds of advancements Telefónica can look to the future in an effort to always be sensitive to capturing new business opportunities..
Telefónica’s majority unions received news of consolidation yesterday, which is mandatory in this type of restructuring affecting business units. Broadly speaking, Telefónica I+D and Telefónica Data employees will transfer to the new company with the same conditions and acquired rights as each employee. Sources at the operator confirmed to the Economist the creation of the new Telefonica Digital Innovation, as well as its programs to encourage internal innovation.
Unnecessary actions
This corporate move by Telefonica intends to Simplifying internal structures and adopting state-of-the-art technology solutions for internal team use. Under this approach, Telefónica Innovación Digital does not compete with Telefónica Tech, a subsidiary specializing in external technology services aimed at all clients of multinational companies.
The new company plans to land a platform where it will participate in what it calls Open Gateway to the rest of the corporation and market. Telefonica, along with a dozen major telcos, is led by the sector employers’ association GSMA. The goal of this industry initiative is to transform communication networks into platforms for improved interoperability. For this, the telecom company will be incorporated New businesses related to 'apification’ or 'softwareization’ of telecommunication networks and infrastructures.
Among other functions, the new subsidiary will set the group’s strategic directions in areas such as innovation, data management, platforms and products and digital services. Under Alonso’s supervision, Telefónica, through the new subsidiary, will digitize product and service sales processes, as well as renew customer communication channels with the company, all tasks already assigned to Alonso.
In turn, Telefónica Digital Innovation also plans to promote innovation in new digital products and services.The complaint related to Telefonica’s fourth floor’s big data, data analytics and artificial intelligenceTasks are also assigned to the Global Unit headed by Sema Alonso.
An open entrance
As for the open entrance, the new subsidiary will be carried out as soon as possibleA promise to open networks to service developers Improve their applications through standardized and interoperable APIs. Telefonica announced this during the last Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with the challenge of „creating new innovation opportunities for those who create experiences”. All of them, thanks to Open Gateway, „can carry out a development compatible with the networks of all telecom operators”.
This year, Telefónica I+D celebrates 35 years of contribution to the competitiveness and modernity of the Telefónica Group.. Among other merits, the technical subsidiary is one of the first private research and development centers in Spain, and it stands shoulder to shoulder with European leaders in terms of the number of European research projects it participates in. Its pioneering nature in the development of telecommunication technologies has been appreciated in the last century, with the transition from the analog to the digital world. Indeed, one of its legendary products Infovia was the first mass Internet access service deployed in Spain. Later, the same company developed the first television transmission systems via IP, as well as the creation Imaginio, pay TV, pre-roll video on demand in Spainas well as other innovations related to connected objects, big data or cloud computing.