1 May, 2015 - Summary of the interview made by the magazine of the Association of Metal Companies of Madrid to the General Manager of Aplicaziones (Mr. José Manuel Cámara Rodriguez).
AECIM: Can you explain what your company does?
AZ: We are a private company (SME), 100% Spanish capital, which is mainly dedicated to telecommunications engineering and consultancy.
Although our company is young, about 10 years old, we have professionals with extensive experience in the sector, both in Spain and in international markets.
During the first years we focused on the markets of telecommunications solutions for Companies and Public Administrations. However, given the looming crisis, 5 years ago we focused on the operator market.
At the moment, we are one of the leading FTTH (Fiber To The Home) engineering companies in Spain and we collaborate in the Fibre Optic deployments that the major operators are carrying out throughout the country.
AECIM: Could you summarise the challenges you have encountered in developing your company over the years?
AZ: From the beginning we have wanted to keep the company independent and with a positive profit and loss account. This has meant giving up projects with high risks and/or difficult financing, but in exchange it has allowed us to weather the crisis in Spain quite well. We have now doubled our equity and are financially independent for the development of our activities. On the other hand, creating a company from scratch is a good challenge and a good adventure. We cannot complain, but in general we observe that the Spanish market is quite conservative when it comes to the incorporation of innovation/new solutions in companies and this is a handicap for innovative companies like us. Decision-making centres are usually quite busy and in many cases do not pay attention to technological proposals that come from new companies and that they do not understand well, even though their implementation can mean great competitive advantages or cost reductions.
AECIM: What products or services do you offer?
AZ: Our core is engineering. At the moment we have a team of engineers with extensive experience in the design of business and operator communications networks. As I mentioned earlier, over the last few years we have managed and designed FTTH networks totalling close to one million UIs (real estate units).
Another line of work that we have implemented over the last few years has been related to operational support systems with a view to reducing our clients' OPEX, here we can highlight the physical layer management systems and the DCIM (Data Centre Infrastructure Management) systems.
Finally, and with a view to their development over the next few years, this year we have also started to market FTTH solutions for the business market. Here we call them Passive Optical Networks (POL: Passive Optical Lans) and we believe that this will allow us to use all our experience with the Operators' FTTH networks also for the business market.
AECIM: How can a small company compete in such professional markets and with players bigger than you?
AZ: Basically with experience, innovation, anticipation and seriousness. We are given few opportunities, so we have to know how to take advantage of them. Fortunately, the telecommunications market is constantly changing. Companies appear and disappear, for example, who would have thought a few years ago that Lucent and Alcatel would be bought by Nokia together? Or for example that a small SW company called "whatsup" was going to virtually eliminate SMS from mobile phones?
In our dimension, we tried to take advantage of these winds of change. At first by developing innovative voice and data network projects for the enterprise market. Now we are helping operators to design the new fibre optic networks that are being deployed throughout Spain. This is the network that will replace the old copper loop that we have known all our lives.
Finally, in order to anticipate the market, this year we have presented the new passive optical networks for companies in the Spanish market, so that we can prepare the ground so that our company can play an important role in the change of the paradigm of communications networks in companies. With these new POL solutions, companies will be able to enjoy the benefits that operators are already enjoying (reduced investment costs and minimal operating costs). For example, with these new solutions, there will be no need to reallocate space for technical rooms in the distribution network, no need for air-conditioning, and no need for dedicated electrical installations. On the other hand, by running single-mode fibre cable to the connection sockets, we no longer have the limitations of 100m of structured (UTP) cabling. This new model of business networks is disruptive and thus, not only will there be more bandwidth at the workstations, but these networks will also be more economical (CAPEX+OPEX). The larger the project and/or the surface area to be equipped with communications (e.g. hospitals, universities, hotels, etc.), the more interesting these new technologies become.
AECIM: And the international market, are you considering it?
AZ: Although our company has no international activity at the moment, some of the partners have had it before. That is why we are not in a hurry. Our objective is not to grow for growth's sake, so if we start international activities it will have to be with a product/service with which we can capitalise on our know-how in an appropriate way. In our experience, it does not make sense to contract international projects just to make money. The margins of international business have to be significantly higher to compensate for the risk of these operations. This is why we must focus on "added value" for exporting.
Exporting engineering services is possible, but it requires an investment plan to establish itself in the target markets and a very demanding control of operations, which from our point of view does not make it very attractive, at this time, for our company. However, exporting technology is simpler (as long as you have the right product - of course!). So, in this line our company has an R&D group that is paving the way for export. Initially, we are developing, with our own resources, solutions for locating people inside buildings without any supporting infrastructure. We expect to have our first demonstrator this year and the first products for vertical markets next year.
AECIM: Aplicaziones is a member of AECIM. How do you value your membership of the association and the services it provides to its members?
AZ: AECIM seems to us to be a very dynamic association with an entrepreneurial spirit. They have supported us in everything we have asked them for, from our proposals for European H2020 projects to more pragmatic issues related to worker training. I think it is a good platform to help the business fabric of SMEs in Madrid to grow.