Adolfo Hernández, Technology Managing Director for Telefónica at IBM chats about Telefónica and IBM partnership projects, key trends and technologies influencing today’s telecom industry and more in this Q&A:
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Hello Adolfo, walk us through your journey in the tech industry as the Technology Managing Director for Telefónica at IBM.
I hold a bachelor’s degree in industrial and Organization Psychology and an MBA at Escuela de Organización Industrial. In the past, I have worked for some of the main consultancy companies in Spain, such as Accenture and Price Waterhouse Coopers where I became a partner. After that, I joined IBM where I have developed my career for the last 21 years.
During this time I have held several responsibilities such as Latin America Consulting Service Leader based in Sao Paulo or Former Managing Partner and General Manager for IBM Global Business Services in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Israel (SPGI). Now, for the last 5 years I’ve been the IBM General Manager for Telefónica Group.
Telefónica and IBM have a longstanding partnership. Can you share some key initiatives or projects that have resulted from this collaboration?
IBM and Telefónica Tech have a strong history of collaboration. We can highlight the most recent agreement with Telefónica Tech to drive the development of AI, Analytics, and Data Management Solutions for Enterprises. Through this collaboration, both companies have established a framework to help customers deal with the complexity of managing new technologies, in a more heterogeneous and changing environment, to obtain the full value of these technologies in clients’ business processes.
But of course, we could talk about so many initiatives before this one. For example, we launched in 2019 Cloud Garden jointly with Telefónica Tech, where IBM Cloud Pak and Red Hat OpenShift solutions provided companies across industries with faster and easier access to resources that accelerate innovation. Later this initiative evolved to TROS, giving Telefónica Tech the capacity to provide a multi-cloud service based on RedHat OpenShift.
But, as I said, there are many projects and there will be even more in the following years.
What role does AI play in Telefónica’s digital transformation strategy, and how is IBM supporting this journey?
AI is one of the main trends in technology so, as you can imagine, it has a major role in Telefonica´s digital transformation strategy, which is why we are driving together the development of solutions around this technology.
What we achieve is to offer these AI solutions to a larger number of customers and applied to a wide variety of needs, such as code generation for IT applications, process automation, the incorporation of cognitive assistants in operations, advice and customer service, analysis or the processing and management of audiovisual content and text documents.
We also promote the creation of use cases around this technology, with the creation of a new use case office that Telefónica Tech will use to promote customer pilot projects and will help promote training and education activities around this technology.
IBM also plays an important role, providing Telefónica Tech with the capabilities of our AI and data platform, watsonx, on which they can build, deploy and scale AI applications. And, on the other hand, co-creating a new open, hybrid and multi-cloud platform that we have christened SHARK.X the execution of business applications that promote the digital transformation of companies and public administrations.
Data is crucial for modern telecom operations. How are IBM and Telefónica working together to harness the power of data analytics and big data?
An example of this is the collaboration agreement that I have referred to earlier, we have signed between Telefónica Tech and IBM to promote the development of AI, Analytics, and Data Management solutions for companies.
Through this new collaboration, Telefónica Tech and IBM will work together on the development and deployment of an open, hybrid, and multi-cloud platform, specialising in data management and AI to facilitate and accelerate business initiatives for customers, a use case office, demonstrations, and development of MVPs; and the implementation of resources, training, and certifications.
Analytics, data governance and the proper deployment of AI are key to business success today and we both share a commitment to helping companies achieve it. That’s why this agreement is particularly relevant, as together we will continue to make progress in building use cases, through an office dedicated to the development of MVPs and demos.
At the same time, ‘Shark.X’ will host IBM ‘Cloud Pak for Data’ to enable data collection, organization, analysis and governance; it will include IBM’s ‘watsonx’ data and AI platform to build, deploy and scale AI applications in a simple, secure and governed manner; as well as ‘Cognos’ and ‘Planning Analytics’, which enable collaborative business intelligence and planning solutions to be deployed;
What are the top challenges of implementing advanced technologies, and how does IBM address them?
We could say that IBM is a pioneer in the development of disruptive technologies such as hybrid cloud, AI or quantum computing. As you can imagine, innovation is in our DNA and we face challenges with enthusiasm and supported by an unbeatable team.
Complexity, skills gap, or integration can be some challenges nowadays. For all of these, we leverage our large expertise to help clients to navigate this complexity. Our teams’ works closely with clients to understand their specific needs and tailor solutions accordingly. Also, we offer comprehensive training and support programs to help bridge the skills gap. At the same time, to address integration challenges, we ensure a smooth and efficient integration process to minimize disruption.
We are seeing that while technologies such as hybrid cloud and AI are transforming the way companies do business today, they are also increasing IT complexity. Today, the average enterprise manages several different public and private cloud environments; more than 1,000 applications, each with multiple dependencies; and handles petabytes of data.
So, being aware of this complexity, we are addressing these challenges with solutions such as IBM Concert or Instruct Lab. The former allows companies to have complete visibility and control of all their enterprise applications providing insights based on generative AI that put the client in control so they can simplify and optimize their operations, across on-premises and hybrid cloud environments. Instruct Lab open initiative democratises the development of large language models that generative AI has enabled, offering a novel method for collaborative customization of LLMs. This type of solution allows you to scale AI in your business and take advantage of the opportunity it represents.
In addition, we are fortunate to have the best partners in the technology sector worldwide, such as Telefónica Tech, among many others, that help us to drive innovation to our clients.
Looking ahead, what are some of the key trends and technologies you believe will shape the future of the telecom industry?
At IBM, we think that the most important technologies for the coming years are going to be generative AI, quantum computing, and hybrid cloud. They have experienced major breakthroughs that are impacting both companies and each of us, and that act transversally in this innovation ecosystem.
Companies need accurate, scalable, and adaptable AI, so it is important to support them throughout the process of implementation, development, and adjustment of a reliable AI. Platforms such as watsonx achieve a unique working environment to create and refine foundational and machine learning models, taking into account key issues such as governance.
On the other hand, hybrid cloud, along with AI and quantum computing, will continue to be the third most transformative technology of our time and in turn, are also very challenging for companies today. In this sense, we help businesses to host workloads in the most suitable environment for them, allowing them to innovate and understand the uniqueness of their business processes and applications to advise them in this process, allowing them to access a resilient environment, with high performance, security, and compliance.
Last but not least, in the field of computing science, quantum is postulated as a new promise to solve impossible questions for ordinary computers or today’s supercomputing. At present, quantum computing can be perceived as still focused on science, but it can be expected that it will soon begin to make real use in fields such as the simulation of molecules, which will have an enormous impact on the environment of pharmaceutical and chemical companies. On the other hand, great use is also expected in the field of optimization, where, for example, the financial and logistics sectors can obtain great benefits, without forgetting everything related to improvements in the field of AI.
