Entradas Etiquetadas con ‘IE Technology & Innovation Club’

On the 20^th of October, the IE Technology and Innovation Club hosted an event with Camilo López de Felipe, CEO and founder of Timpik.com, a social network dedicated to sporting activities. In a time where social networks are influencing every aspect of our lives, Timpik aims to connect sports players that live in the same city and to make the organization of games easy and straightforward.

In a relaxed and informal environment, Camilo explained to the audience how difficult it was to become an entrepreneur and to make his dream come true. Due to his experience as a software engineer, Camilo built a platform to resolve the hassle of organizing a football match via a mass of emails and phone calls.

Timpik was born, but Camilo did not know anything about business and start-ups, so he applied to an accelerator program. After being rejected twice, he finally got in and this year is running as market leader in Spain for his first VC round of financing.

The business model behind Timpik is simple. Every player is charged a commission when they play a game. Moreover, the website gathers information about the sporting habits of its members, selling targeted advertising space to sport-related companies.

In an industry dominated by network externalities, Timpik is today facing increased competition from other start-ups. Fubles, Jogabo and Sportal are examples of market leaders in other European countries. As it happened with facebook and LinkedIn, Camilo believes that one sport social network could emerge as the dominant player in the future.

El pasado 20 de octubre, el IE Technology and Innovation Club, contó con la presencia de Camilo López de Felipe, fundador y CEO del Timpik.com, una red social dedicada al deporte. Timpik pretende conectar a los deportistas que viven en la misma ciudad y facilitar la organización de partidos.

Camilo explicó, en un ambiente informal y relajado, lo difícil que era realizar su sueño de convertirse en emprendedor. Debido a su experiencia como ingeniero de software, Camilo desarrolló una plataforma para resolver el problema de organizar un partido de fútbol por emails y llamadas telefónicas.

Timpik nació, pero Camilo no sabia nada sobre negocios y start-ups, así que inscribió en un accelerator program. Después de haber sido rechazado 2 veces, consiguió una plaza este año y se está desarrollando como líder del mercado en España con su primera ronda de financiación.

El modelo de negocio de Timpik sencillo; cada deportista paga una comisión cuando juegue. Por otra parte, la web recoge información sobre los hábitos deportivos de sus miembros y vende espacios publicitarios dirigidos a las empresas relacionadas con el deporte.

Hoy Timpik se enfrenta  a una mayor competencia en una industria dominada por las externalidades de la red. Fubles, Jogabo y Sportal son ejemplos de los líderes del mercado en otros países europeos. Como sucedió con Facebook y LinkedIn, Camilo cree que una de las redes de deporte podría llegar a ser las dominantes en el futuro.

In a recently concluded seminar conducted by IE India club, several industry veterans discussed about the emergence of a quiet yet burgeoning trade relationship between India and Spain. The occasion was also graced by the presence of Indian ambassador to Spain – His Excellency Mr.Sunil Lal and Dean of IE Business School – Mr. Santiago  Iñiguez de Onzoño. The seminar was an astounding success, highlighted by the fact that there are growing synergies between India and Spain in terms of bilateral trade and perhaps we are witnessing a defining moment in the history of the two countries. The presentation was followed by a highly interactive Q&A session, between IE students and the speakers.

Mr. Alan D Silva, Partner, PwC, Spain

Mr. Oscar Vía Ozalla, General Director International Development, Isolux Corsán

Mr. Guillermo Falco – Head Client Services, Southern Europe, Banking and Capital Markets at Infosys Technologies

Counselor to the Indian Ambassador in Spain, Mr. Jayant Khobragade

Indian Ambassador to Spain, His Excellency Mr.Sunil Lal

Dean of IE Business Schoo,l Mr. Santiago  Iñiguez de Onzoño

Current Scenario

With an annual bilateral trade involving $5 Billion, trade partnership between India and Spain has been an unprecedented success story. In recent times, where we have been witnessing an increasing volatility in Euro zone and an imminent global financial crisis, a story like this comes as a breath of fresh air and needs worth mentioning. Notwithstanding all the economic turmoil of recent past, the Indo-Spanish trade is poised to grow at around 20% in the coming years. In a recent survey published by Indian embassy in Madrid, trade balance between the two countries has hovered around $2000 Million mark year-on-year: a clear indication of growing interest of Spain to seek new partners in emerging economies like India and also an indication of Indian Government’s persistence of continuing with economic liberalization policy that started about two decades ago.  Presently, there are around ten major Spanish companies working in India. Sectors where tie-up and expansions are happening in Indian market are consumer goods, travel, tourism, energy, banking, construction and retail, with renewable energy being most dominant among them. Some of the well-known Spanish companies in India are Acciona (Wind energy), Gamesa (10% of wind energy projects in India) – in a joint venture with Caparo, a London based company and Inditex (with its brand Zara and Mango). On the other side, Indian companies have also entered the Spanish market in Pharmaceuticals, IT Services, Energy and automobile industries. Financial sector has been identified as major growth area of India. Apart from these, following sectors have been identified as, priority sectors where Indo-Spanish joint ventures can happen in the future: Infrastructure, energy, agriculture, automobile components, information Technology, pharmaceuticals, textile and tourism.

What does India offer to Spain and rest of the world?

After years of stagnation due to Socialist policies, Indian economy breathed a new lease of life in early 90s, when the then finance minister (Dr. Manmohan Singh) introduced sweeping reforms in various sectors. In the following years, Indian economy has witnessed huge spells of GDP growth (almost touching double digit in 2000s and currently estimated to be 8.8% for 2011), increasing interest of multinationals to invest in the country, resulting in rising levels of living standards. Conditions for doing business for international companies remain positive.  Following figures, as presented by one of our guests (Mr. Alan D Silva, Partner in PwC, Spain) indicate that India continues to be one of the most favored destinations for multinationals. With receding confidence in developed economies, India has potential to emerge as an important partner for alleviating the trade imbalances and providing attractive investment incentives:

• India is 4th largest economy in the world in terms of PPP
• 70% of foreign investments are making profits
• 84% plan to expand 
• 91% perceive new opportunities for investments
• 60% of the companies are obtaining better margins in their businesses in India than their average in their global businesses
• 220 of Fortune 500 are present in the Indian market
• Indian Economy: Service: 58%, Agriculture: 20%, Industry: 19%
• Forex reserves in India: $320 Billion
• FDI attractiveness: among top 5 in the world
• As per BCG study, banking sector will be third largest in the world in next 14 years
• Growth of India is based on internal demand
• India ranks among highest in consumer confidence

In addition to the factors mentioned above, India’s favorable demographics as compared to other emerging economies can provide a huge impact in predicting growth for the future. As the world order slowly shifts from Service based to Knowledge based, India will be in a position to provide a huge supply of ‘Knowledge Workers’ in the age group of 25-35 years. High-income countries like Spain will face an upward demand for skilled workers. With dwindling population growth in west, the shortage of skills shall be compensated by demographics of Indian population, which will pave way for larger business partnerships with Indian companies.

What Spain offers to India? – A case study on Isolux Corsán, India

Isolux is a multi-national company working in 25 countries in the areas of Construction, Environment, Energy and is one of the biggest trade partners with India. It works with a global strategy of being a local company, when doing business abroad and prefers to call itself as a global company headquartered in Spain.  It also focuses on a product / service portfolio for Middle East market by using India as its operations hub. Its success in doing business in India can serve as a template for all the future partnerships.

Mr. Oscar Vía Ozalla, General Director International Development, Isolux Corsán attended the seminar and provided detailed insights on his experience of working in India and the benefits his company reaped out of the partnership with Indian Government.  The highlight of the presentation was the fact that Indian market currently represents second largest revenue source for Isolux (14%- next only to Spain) and it is anticipated that India will become the largest revenue generator for the company by 2013 (15% of its revenues). The company has been prequalified in 55 construction projects across India.  He further pointed out that for Isolux, “Country Analysis” is paramount in making investment decisions. This includes political, economical and monetary factors and also ability to invest in local currency, which is essential for a self-sustainable financing. Isolux started its operations in 2003, set up representative office to analyze market and looked for partnership. Eventually they entered into a 50-50 JV with Consoma (50-50) in 2007.

How Spain can reap benefits from Indian IT Services – A case study on Infosys, Spain

The success stories about Indian IT services firms have been oft repeated everywhere in broader business contexts. Infosys is one of the biggest Indian IT giants and is seeking to position itself as a Global software and consulting service provider. In fact, it has pioneered the first global delivery model, which has helped large corporations all over the world in the last decade, to save a lion’s share of their IT costs and with right quality. Infosys has a 97% repeat business rate with its customers. It has been growing at a CAGR of 56% in European market.

Spain has been one of the late entrants in the IT outsourcing business and the Indian IT conglomerates offer a huge opportunity for the Spanish markets. With local economy plunged deep into crisis, corporations across Spain will need to rethink their business strategies and cut down their costs. Indian IT service industry, with its huge experience with US and other European customers are well suited to serve the purpose.

Mr. Guillermo Falco – Head Client Services, Southern Europe, Banking and Capital Markets at Infosys Technologies, provided some interesting details about the company’s strategy in Spain. Infosys has been one of the early movers among Indian software companies in Spain. Not surprisingly, they have repeated their success here as well. For Spanish banks, Infosys created a software factory in Spanish language and operated on a 5:95 onshore-offshore model, which effectively translates into a more than 50% cost savings for its customers.

Current and Future Challenges

Despite the booming business relations between the two countries, Indian companies expanding into Spain and vice versa, need to be aware of the language barriers and the cultural differences that exist between the two countries.

English is the business language used in India and the focus on learning Spanish for business is almost non-existent. However, English is now the second language taught in Spanish schools (moving from French), which implies that language would cease to be a big barrier in the near future.

Cultural sensitization is a topic, which can be dealt easily, if identified and recognized in time. All the experts on the panel agreed that the best way to enter either market is through Joint Ventures in a specific industry as a testing ground. The lessons learnt from these ventures can serve as a benchmark for doing business with each other. For example, Isolux first entered the Indian Market with a JV with Consoma and started working in the Roadway construction sector. This helped them understand the local market and test waters for entering into the Power transmission business and explore other avenues of engagement. Infosys clients were pleasantly surprised with the result and quality of deliverables provided by a company in a non-Spanish speaking country, which not only helped Infosys to retain existing clients but also served as a precedent for new clients.

Concluding Remarks

All the speakers in the seminar unanimously agreed on encouraging more synergies between two of the culturally disparate, yet market oriented countries. At a time, when corporations across the world are increasingly facing non-market, unforeseen challenges such as global warming, European crisis, growing distrust among citizens over Governance, their survival and sustenance will invariably depend upon seeking new opportunities. Evidently, value creation will require increased mobility and collaboration between India and Spain. Furthermore, both the countries offer each other complementary expertise (e.g. Spain in renewable Energy and India in Knowledge sourcing), which will go a long way in defining a long-lasting relationship.

The IE Technology Club organized an enjoyable and interactive conference last Thursday, May 26. Brian Fitzpatrick, Google Executive Leader of open source projects and Head of their engineering technology centre in Chicago, gave an extremely interesting and dynamic discussion about their ground-breaking developments.

The event lasted approximately one and a half hours and included a debate about the effectiveness of data liberation strategies. Mr. Fitzpatrick shared many of the views held by the alumni and actual students present.

El pasado jueves 26 de Mayo, dentro de las conferencias organizadas por el IE Technology Club, pudimos disfrutar de  una interesante y participativa conferencia, donde Brian Fitzpatrick como responsable de los proyectos de Innovación tecnológica en el interesante campo de Open Source y máximo responsable del centro de ingeniería tecnológica en Chicago, expuso de manera magistral, interesante y dinámica sus ideas y proyectos de innovación.

Durante una hora y media los asistentes disfrutaron y participaron de las iniciativas y estrategia de negocio en liberación de datos que el ponente de Google compartió con los alumnos y antiguos alumnos del IE Business School.

IE Business School celebró su segundo Digital Forum el pasado 15 de Marzo, que sirvió, una vez más de punto de encuentro de la comunidad IE con los líderes tecnológicos Europeos y emprendedores digitales. Más de 150 personas asistieron, aprendiendo sobre el futuro de la industria tecnológica de la mano de quienes que lo está modelando.

“El primer Digital Forum fue un gran éxito”, dijo Joe Morrison, uno de los organizadores de esta segunda edición. “Definitivamente fue un acto difícil de organizar, pero queríamos construir sobre el éxito del primer evento y al mismo tiempo traer algo nuevo a la mesa”.

Ese “nuevo factor” fueron las diferentes sesiones simultaneas que tuvieron lugar después de la apertura de Diego Segre de IBM,  que expuso las nuevas tecnologías más prometedoras que ve IBM. Los asistentes pudieron optar por asistir a dos de las cinco mesas redondas, lo que facilitó que las discusiones fueran mas íntimas y el aprendizaje de áreas específicas de tecnología. La asistencia a cada sesión de trabajo se limitaba a unas 45 personas, con temas que variaban entre tecnología móvil, comercio electrónico, publicidad online, y medios de comunicación social para emprendedores de alta tecnología. Más de 17 ponentes y moderadores participaron de empresas como BuyVIP, Grupo Prisa, RIM, BBVA, Groupon, TechCrunch y Accenture.

Además de Morrison, el evento fue organizado por otros cinco IMBAs de abril del 2011: Álvaro de la Fuente, Sammy Giebele, Guerson Meyer, Nikolai Schuman and Massimo Pernicone. “Es bastante apropiado que este evento sea impulsado por los clubes de tecnología y emprendedores”, dijo Morrison “, ya que la mitad de los organizadores están tratando de convertirse en empresarios de tecnología, a través de empresas como foodiesquare.com y dealbossapp.com.” Mientras tanto, los planes para el tercer foro digital del IE ya están en marcha.

IE Business School held its second annual digital forum on March 15, bringing together the school community with Europe’s tech leaders and digital entrepreneurs. More than 150 attended, in order to learn from the people shaping the tech industry’s future.

“The first digital forum was a runaway success”, said Joe Morrison, co-organizer of the second digital forum. “It was definitely a tough act to follow, but we wanted to build on the success of that first event, while bringing something new to the table”.

That new factor included the simultaneous break-out sessions. After the keynote from IBM’s Diego Segre discussing the most promising new technologies that IBM sees, attendees could choose to attend two of five smaller panel sessions. This facilitated intimate discussions and learning about specific areas in tech. Attendance at each break-out session was limited to around 45 attendees, with subjects ranging from mobile technology, e-commerce, online advertising, and social media to tech startups. More than 17 guest speakers and moderators participated from companies such as buyvip, Grupo Prisa, RIM, BBVA, Groupon, TechCrunch and Accenture.

Besides Morrison, the event was organized by five other April 2011 IMBAs: Alvaro de la Fuente, Sammy Giebele, Guerson Meyer, Nikolai Schuman and Massimo Pernicone. “It’s pretty appropriate this event was driven by the technology and entrepreneurial clubs,” said Morrison, “since half the organizers are trying to become tech entrepreneurs through ventures such as foodiesquare.com and dealbossapp.com.” Meanwhile, plans for IE’s third digital forum are already underway.

Last October 28 of 2010 took place, in the context of IE Technology & Innovation Club, the conference ” Virtualization as a lever of Innovation: Transforming the Desktop”, in wich we had the excellent presence of the Citrix Iberia Sales Manager, Santiago Campuzano.

In the context of a business school like the IE, this expert told us about the different strategies to follow in the desktop virtualization, what should be taken in each circumstance, considering the objectives to be achieved, the job characteristics and assigned tasks, so that we avoid incurring unnecessary costs and ensure the success of the project.

Also discussed the future development of this technology that is already revolutionizing the concept of desktop.

After analyzing some case studies of implementation in companies with a high degree of geographic decentralization that have succeeded in sharply reducing Time to Market and the costs associated with security and operations in their IT departments, there was an interesting debate about the suitability of this technology to provide cloud services more effectively and efficiently than redesigning the applications toward web format.

El pasado 28 de octubre de 2010 tuvo lugar, en el marco del IE Technology & Innovation Club, la conferencia “Virtualización como palanca de Innovación: Transformación del Desktop”, en la que contamos con la magnífica presencia del Sales Manager de Citrix Iberia,  Santiago Campuzano.

En el contexto de una Escuela de Negocios como es el IE, este experto nos habló de las diferentes  estrategias a seguir en la virtualización del puesto de trabajo, de cuáles se deben adoptar en cada circunstancia, considerando los objetivos a alcanzar, las  características del puesto y las tareas asignadas, de modo que evitemos incurrir en costes innecesarios y aseguremos el éxito del proyecto.

Así mismo se analizó la evolución futura de esta tecnología, que ya está revolucionando el concepto de escritorio,.

Tras analizar algunos casos prácticos de Implementación, en compañías con un alto grado de descentralización geográfica que han conseguido reducir drásticamente el Time to Market y los costes asociados a operaciones y seguridad en los departamentos de IT, surgió un interesante debate acerca de la idoneidad de esta tecnología de cara a proporcionar servicios en la nube de una manera más eficaz y eficiente que rediseñando las aplicaciones hacia el formato web.

On 14 July 2010, IE Technology and Innovation Club had the pleasure of hosting Jose Moran in a keyspeaker event. Jose was one of the founder members of Meta4, a Spanish technology startup which deals with Human Resources solutions. Meta4 is an example of a dream startup and Jose helped the company grow from 40 to 1000 employees. Jose was also responsible for the firms international expansion. In an hour long event Jose shared his experience and his vision with the members of the Technology and Innovation club, inspiring and motivating people to foster a culture of innovation and to think beyond.

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El pasado 14 sde Julio de 2010, el IE Technology and Innovation Club organizó una conferencia con Jose Moran. Jose es uno de los fundadores de Meta4, una compañía informatica española, relacionada con el entorno de los recursos humanos. Meta 4 es un ejemplo de startup y Jose ayudó a la compañía a crecer desde los  40 empleados a los 1000. José también fue responsable de la firma en la expansión internacional. Durante más de una Hora Jose compartió su experiencia y visión con los miembros del club, inspirando y motivando a la gente a involucrarse en una cultura de innovación y de pensar más allá.

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IE Alumni is pleased to announce our new representatives of the IE Technology & Innovation Club.

Joining the clubs’ representatives, Rupon Ali (IMBA 2009), Fernando Maria Alonso Velasco(MDOP 2004), Gustavo Andres Alvarado (MTDB 2010), Miguel Angel Abeledo (EXMDS 2008), are (from left to right in the photo): Rakesh Singh (IMBA 2011), Aneek Choudhury (IMBA 2011), Massimo Pernicone (IMBA 2011), Sébastien Rezzonico (IMBA 2011), Guerson Meyer (IMBA 2011) and Ritesh Raj (IMBA 2010).

We wish them all the best in this new endeavor.

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IE Alumni se complace en anunciar los nuevos representantes de IE Technology & Innovation Club.

Con nuestros representantes Rupon Ali (IMBA 2009), Fernando Maria Alonso Velasco(MDOP 2004), Gustavo Andres Alvarado (MTDB 2010), Miguel Angel Abeledo (EXMDS 2008), ahora el club será representado también por (de izquierda a derecha en la foto): Rakesh Singh (IMBA 2011), Aneek Choudhury (IMBA 2011), Massimo Pernicone (IMBA 2011), Sébastien Rezzonico (IMBA 2011), Guerson Meyer (IMBA 2011) y Ritesh Raj (IMBA 2010).

Le deseamos lo mejor a ellos en esta nueva aventura.

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