Interview with Vicente Muñoz Boza, Chief IoT Officer of Telefónica

• Is the Internet of Things established in our daily lives?

Internet of Things is a reality applied in more areas than we can imagine, both in our country and internationally. In fact, many customers with whom we collaborate are transforming their businesses thanks to the application of this new technology.

From Telefónica we want to offer our knowledge and experience in this process, since we are aware that the digital transformation entails a great challenge. We believe it is a trend that will continue to rise and, therefore, we are betting on it and working with different companies to extend the advantages of connectivity to all possible sectors.

Among some of the examples of the technology that we are developing, we can highlight the connectivity applied to the automotive sector. In this case, thanks to Telefónica, thousands of vehicles currently have the necessary connectivity so that drivers have all the information regarding the status of their car. This allows drivers to detect in advance any anomaly in the vehicle before it becomes an issue.

As you  can see, connectivity has already been implemented in the most common aspects of our daily lives.

“we are aware that the digital transformation entails a great challenge. We believe it is a trend that will continue to rise”

• What advantages of IoT are common to the company and the user?

Our vision from Telefónica is for connectivity to be implanted in all levels of society so that we can connect with what is really important and simplify different tasks. That is, the objective for the objects themselves to have the ability to take care of their functions. For example, the garbage can has the capacity to warn you that it is full so you do not have to worry about checking it.

This gives us greater efficiency and control of everything that happens around us and to better spend our time. Thus, we can focus on those things that distinguish us and differentiate us as humans and machines can work more effectively in those things that are more mechanical and routine. All this is clearly reflected in the performance within the work, both for the company and for the employees, who save time in tasks that are now in charge of the machines and can dedicate their time entirely to their job.

On the other hand, IoT connectivity collects information as things connect with each other. This allows us, based on the collected data, to have a sketch of our behavior and thus we can know ourselves in a much more complete way. As a consequence of this knowledge, we can make sound decisions in a much faster and safer way. This is something that we all benefit from, especially companies, since IoT is the ideal means to improve processes, be more efficient and even to detect business opportunities that until now remained hidden.

Precisely adapted to companies, we have designed the Kite Platform tool for greater control in the management of business. The Iot connectivity platform supports new technologies, manages devices and facilitates the integration of IoT clouds.

“IoT is the ideal means to improve processes, be more efficient and even to detect business opportunities that until now remained hidden”

• Ten years ago we started using the smartphone, what do you think will be the situation in the IoT sector in ten years?

It is true that the technological sector is evolving exponentially. If this trend continues, in the coming years connectivity will have extended to practically all aspects of life and, possibly, we will not understand the function of objects that are not connected, as we do not contemplate our day to day without smartphones . In fact, according to Machina Research, in 2025 we could reach the quantity of 27 billion connected objects.

Although it is difficult to estimate all the possibilities of IoT in the future, today its contribution to companies is a reality. In fact, we could even talk about a change of era. The companies that are developing the most in this aspect are building a clear advantage over their competition and are contributing to substantially improve the possibilities of users on a day-to-day basis.

Even so, the challenges and opportunities in the IoT environment do not stop appearing. For this reason, at Telefónica we are working to anticipate them and be able to provide the most complete response possible. For this, we are building a solid base of partners with whom to continue developing new initiatives, but to do it optimally we need the best professionals in our team. That is why we are building an environment where these professionals coexist or, as we call them, “Thingnovadores”, with the aim of facilitating collaboration between them and enhancing creativity, since we believe it is the perfect climate for Telefónica to follow championing the change that implies the incorporation of IoT.