Brazil's TIM invests in major digital transformation reshuffle

Brazilian telecom operator TIM, the country's third largest mobile player, has announced a new strategy aimed at better reaping the benefits, both internally and from a B2B/B2C perspectives, of digital transformation.

The new take, according to TIM's Leonardo Capdeville (pictured), encompasses the redesign of the company's organizational structure, with the creation of a digital transformation business unit and departments to deal specifically with startups, big data and digital channels, among others.

Capdeville himself, who made the announcement at the Cubo co-working space in São Paulo, will now be chief technology and information officer (CTIO).

Below Capdeville, former Globo TV Guilherme Teixeira is now the digital transformation director, for the newly created position, while under the umbrella of Teixeira come three new departments: Big Data, Analytics and AI, headed by Auana Mattar; Digital Channels and Platforms, led by Flávio Morelli; and Innovation and New Business, headed by Janilson Bezerra.

Within Mattar's division, a role should be created to deal specifically with privacy and personal data handling, in line with the new rules of Brazil's general personal data protection bill (LGPD).

All such changes are part of a new positioning Capdeville called "TIM 4.0."

"What comes next for TIM is a true digital reinvention focusing on AI/cognitive technologies, advanced analytics, cybersecurity. The issue of cybersecurity, for example, is ever more urgent, and this is a differential operators have in relation to OTT."

In Capdeville's opinion, the telecom industry has supported and even enabled through its networks the rise of the digital transformation and of new digital services, but ended up leaving the monetization of the new business model to other companies.

Now it is necessary to turn that around and make up lost ground with new revenue streams.

"We've always been a technology company, but we've never sold our technology. If we, operators, continue to be rooted in the selling of prepaid, postpaid plans, etc., we will die. We'll see other companies become more competitive," said the executive. He also stated that TIM is listed on the stock exchange with a market value of around 25bn reais (US$6.5bn), while other technology companies that do not own physical and infrastructure assets such as telecom companies have equal or higher value.

The CTIO pointed out that with the arrival of 5G, new and multiple forms of communication will be made possible, and with it new business models. Operators, therefore, need to walk away from the connectivity-only delivery, at the risk of repeating the error of following the dumb pipe model.

"It takes us from six to seven months on average to launch a service. Amazon does that in 11 seconds," he said.

According to the executive, TIM wants to get to the point in which it will be able to have a marketplace of different IoT solutions and technologies to be offered to SMEs and the agribusiness, for example. Another potential model is the offer of "smart city-as-a-service."

As part of this digital transformation drive, and to take content closer to the customer, the company is also creating 21 decentralized network datacenters, in addition to two IT datacenters it already maintains in Santo André and Rio de Janeiro.

AI TENDER ON THE WAY

Additionally, the company is preparing to launch a Request for Quotation (RfQ) to contract an artificial intelligence platform that will work as the "cognitive engine" of TIM, the CTIO said.

The idea is to launch the RfQ this year and conclude the selection process by the first quarter next year.

Platforms from brands such as IBM (Watson) and Microsoft (Azure) are on the radar, though not only. TIM previously used Watson for an internal chatbot aimed at field employees.

According to Capdeville, the company gained agility and reduced by 60% the time with which field teams reported problems to the central.

"What we now want with this cognitive engine, though, is to bring artificial intelligence to the core and maximize what we offer to and how we deal with clients. We want to reach a new level of customized offerings and services, beyond what we already do with the use of advanced analytics."

STARTUPS

Another of TIM's bet is the development of open APIs, application programming interfaces, in the format of open innovation - that is in partnership with startups.

TIM currently has around 200 APIs developed and 20 partnering startups.

"When it comes to telecoms, we want the startup to see TIM as the prime partner. We want to be a reference for the digital world and we want TIM to be seen as a digital hub," said Janilson Bezerra, responsible for the relationship with startups.

The company opened an area at Cubo, the co-working and innovation space created by Itaú bank. Cubo, of which TIM is also a sponsors, is one of the largest of its kind in Latin America.