Chema Casas, General Manager of Telefónica in the Eastern region (Catalonia, Aragon, Balearic Islands, Valencia and Murcia) and Director of Telefónica Spain’s vertical businesses (Movistar Prosegur Alarms, eHealth, Energy and Consumer Finance), has been digitalising companies for more than 20 years: from the days of “electric banking”, through the beginnings of Terra and the Internet boom in Spain, to his most recent management responsibilities for Telefónica in Argentina, Colombia and Ecuador.

“Species that do not adapt to change disappear, and we cannot leave anyone behind”. In this TB Partner Talks, Chema Casas tells us about the importance of digital transformation, both for large corporations and SMEs, and what role Telefónica has as “an integrator of hardware, software and connectivity, with a layer of cybersecurity and data management”.

Chema Casas also talks about the deployment of 5G in rural areas, the significant improvements made in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the ideal regulatory framework to accelerate and democratise digital transformation processes.

Check out other TB Partner Talks here.

Àngel Llull, international president of The Knot Worldwide, multinational operating in Spain under the brand name of Bodas.net, tells us about its commitment to Barcelona: the company plans to open new offices in the city centre, which will house the main headquarters for international business and control operations in 14 countries, an activity that is now concentrated in Sant Cugat. This is the story of an international corporation, which has its origins in a startup created in 2008 in Barcelona, and which is committed to maintaining a strong presence in the city.

Àngel Llull, born in Menorca, began his professional career in a traditional sector such as the hotel industry, soon made a technological evolution and travelled the world with Booking -first to San Francisco, then to Singapore-, to end up returning to Barcelona. “During the ten years I’ve been away, the city’s technology ecosystem has made giant strides in terms of startups, funding and talent.

In this Partner Talks, Mar Galtés, director of corporate development at Tech Barcelona, talks to Àngel Llull about attracting and retaining talent, the role of offices in the future, innovation processes and the challenges of growth for a key player in the digitisation of a business as traditional as weddings.

As CEO of Adevinta Spain, Román Campa has a panoramic view of the entire digital ecosystem: the Norwegian based company operates in Spain with marketplaces as renowned as Milanuncios, Fotocasa, Habitaclia, InfoJobs, motos.net and coches.net. Its mission? To “improve people’s lives”, providing basic elements such as home, transport or work, through online commerce, a space that is becoming increasingly important.

According to Adevinta’s latest Digital Pulse report, one in three Spaniards already shop online every week. Campa explains that the challenge now is to adapt to the new European data regulations, the introduction of the metaverse and the transition from the marketplace to the transaction. All of this while improving the user experience.

In this new TB Partner Talks, we also discover how Román’s time as an airline consultant, which required him to travel constantly between Madrid, Santiago de Chile and Sao Paulo, made him land at Schibsted (now Adevinta Spain), and adopt new policies that prioritise work-life balance. With the implementation of the “Smart Working” system, its employees are only obliged to be in the office five days a trimester!

Roger Sendra is the General Manager of dentsu in Barcelona. A corporation founded more than 100 years ago in Japan, with 48,000 specialists working in more than 145 markets, and which represents the first network of advertising agencies in Spain.

Although he began his career in business and banking, he joined dentsu more than 20 years ago. “I soon discovered that I was interested in working with brands and making them grow,” he says. During all this time, he has experienced the changing role of technology in the advertising world; before, “digital was a simple complement to brand management”; now, “new technologies allow us to optimize processes, make better decisions and work more efficiently”.

In this Partner Talks, we demystify the image attributed to historical advertising companies, where ads were created amidst cigarette smoke and whiskey shots in the purest Mad Men style. Today Roger talks about the role of agencies in an increasingly competitive global environment, where Artificial Intelligence and machine learning must coexist with creative professionals to get the most out of brands.

Fluidra es la multinacional catalana que lidera el sector mundial de piscinas, y  Eloi Planes es desde 2006 su presidente ejecutivo. Creada en 1969 por cuatro familias catalanas, Fluidra tiene la innovación y la internacionalización en su ADN. “Desde el principio sabíamos que el mundo era nuestro, aunque entonces fuera puramente aspiracional”. En 2007  la empresa empezó a cotizar en bolsa y en 2017 se fusionó con la norteamericana Zodiac.

Las cifras son de gigante: facturación de 2.000 millones, 140 filiales y más de 6.000 empleados y una capitalización bursátil superior a los 6.500 millones de euros. Pero “en Fluidra todavía se percibe el valor del emprendimiento y estamos muy atentos al mundo startup”, afirma Planes.

La compañía es Corporate Partner de Tech Barcelona y un gran activo del ecosistema empresarial innovador y tecnológico local. En esta charla conocemos su gestión de la innovación  y el foco de sus  principales proyectos, como el Internet of Pools, un sistema de monitorización de la piscina para controlarla remotamente y optimizar su rendimiento gracias a la conectividad.

Como es tradición, sometemos a Eloi Planes al TB Members Calling, una gran oportunidad para conocer su mejor idea al frente de Fluidra, su lugar para la inspiración o su gran afición por la poesía, con libro autopublicado incluido: “El viatge més pur”.

Interview with Enrique Tomás, Global Partner of Tech Barcelona

Enrique Tomás is ham, entrepreneurship and innovation. He has been since he started his first shop at the age of 16, a bacon shop in the Salut market in Badalona. He now has more than 100 shops in ten countries, including the recent opening of the gastronomic space at Pier01 at Tech Barcelona.

From selling hams on the radio to devising the new Jamón Experience concept, Enrique Tomás has also become famous for his creativity: he organised a massive Isabel Pantoja concert for which tickets could only be obtained by buying a shoulder of ham. Enrique Tomás is a self-made entrepreneur made with passion, and that is how he has managed to put a name and surname to ham. Although sometimes, he says, “success comes with failure”. “I have made many mistakes, but none of them have compromised the company”.

The experience of a traditional entrepreneur is always a great learning experience, also for technological start-ups. “The future of food is delivery, I see it almost impossible for someone to buy something today in case they want it the day after tomorrow”. Why do we all order sushi or pizza and not a plate or a ham sandwich?

Enrique Tomás arrival at Tech Barcelona goes beyond the new gastronomic space at Pier01. As a Global Partner, Enrique Tomás counts on Barcelona’s technological ecosystem to develop its global growth strategy. In the words of Enrique Tomás, “you have to show us how to take the world of ham to its maximum digitalisation”.