To the question or reflection of this table on "whether to build an IoT platform or be part of one" I think for us the answer is simple.

Our option was, and has been, to build one of our own.

And the reason we did so was simple and straightforward. We already had a customer base to target and to help us in our purpose to help this particular society and markets. "Turning industries into Cloud Industries". Or in other words, not just digitise them but turn them into true Industries managed, controlled and run from the cloud.

It is clear that it was easy for us to take the decision to create our own IoT platform because we had and have a customer base in Spain, Portugal and the USA to turn to.

And I think we are transferring this philosophy to our Marketplace and even to a future ecommerce that we will launch within the Alava Group.

But it should not be forgotten that it was not only our customer base that enabled us to make this decision, but also the reality of the business.

At this point I would like to address some of the myths that make it difficult for customers to understand the benefits of working with independently built Industrial IoT platforms that we find in the market:

Myth #1: My needs are unique

We are faced with the paradox that there are clients who decide to undertake development on their own, investing time, money and enormous resources to do their own development because they understand that their needs are unique and no existing platform covers them. However, they try not to get out of the first position by contracting generalist platforms that give them some ready-made functionalities, not realising that in this way they are "constrained" to the requirements of this non-specialised technology.

In other words, they are looking for their own specialisation, but opt for a non-specialised platform.

These companies, when they see that their project is falling apart because they cannot find a way to maintain and grow their platforms, contact us and discover that all the work that has cost them so much has already been done, many times better than them, but that there is still a lot of work to be done that was only on their agenda and that has already been done. In short, they discover that their needs are not so unique and that someone has already worked on them and is already ahead of them.

They learn at a very high price, that they have to concentrate their time on developing the uniqueness of their product/service. That is where their money and time will be best spent, leaving the real specialists to help them with their specialised IoT platforms.

And the same happens with those companies that decide to work from a generalist platform, in the hope of speeding up and being able to offer a better and sharper product/service than the others. They are doomed to failure by the "constraint" of the platform owner and by the fact of discovering that their Apps do not meet the other real business needs, and this is usually because they do not have with them staff with real knowledge and experience of the market, i.e. the knowledge owners.

Myth No. 2: IoT platforms are expensive

Yes, platforms cost money, but what doesn't cost money?

Although if you dig a little into the cost you will see, very quickly, that the ROI is excellent, not only in terms of operational and labour cost savings, but also in terms of improving industrial processes. And if we are talking about building our own platform or using third party generalists then we are talking about millions versus thousands per year, for the user/customer.

We must avoid the "do-it-yourself" or "I'm the best because I have a big name" platforms, by doing so we will save ourselves, as customers, time, costs and aggravation. What's more, we may be gambling with the future of the company by focusing on something key for the

business, without having the right partners. And that is something you have to put on the table when choosing whether you want to be part of a platform or whether you want to have your own.

Myth #3: High dependence of my business on a Partner 

Here I will be quick and concise.

We have a single purpose: "To turn industrial companies into Cloud Industries". Anyone who does not want to make that leap is not our customer. They are simply not mature enough to be supported by an Industrial IoT platform like ours. If you want to be an Industry Cloud, you have to have partners. You need the best ones in each case.

And we cannot tackle this with a platform that starts from something generalist. We have to tackle this problem at the root because as a niche platform (in our case industry), we must have the development that IT and OTs in the industry need.

Or to put it another way, would we trust the electronics of our car if when we start it every morning, first we see how Windows starts and then starts the App that manages the phone, the radio, the navigator, ... or would we trust more something that is integrated in the firmware of the car and is built on purpose?

Sorry for the simile, but I am sure it will help you all to understand the simile between generic platform or specific platform.

But the question the end customer has to ask himself is: What does he stand to lose if he does not have partners like us on his way into the future?

Fortunately, there are more and more experienced CTOs in the industry who can help the steering committee understand that this question is crucial, because what they are really asking is: how long do they think their traditional business model (pipeline business) can continue? Do they need to switch to a cloud business model or perhaps a platform for them as well?

If the products TESLA makes are no less valuable even though they don't make the tyres or own their IoT platform or ERP platform, I would ask all those who doubt proprietary and specialised platforms, why would yours lose value by using a specialised Industrial IoT platform?

For that reason and no other is why we have chosen to be the company that "Turns Industries into Cloud Industries".

HYBRID PLATFORM BUSINESS MODEL

Our business model is not a pure or traditional platform, but a hybrid industrial platform. By hybrid we do not mean being agnostic to the cloud or the operating system with which the client wishes to work, but also the hybridisation of the platform business model and the traditional enterprise business model (I am referring to a pipeline business).

Although our Industrial IoT platform is open to all existing industrial needs and processes, for now we have developed more those related to the

Predictive maintenance, infrastructure management and monitoring, and quality and safety processes in factories, it is true that our value proposition is related to our ability to provide a 360º service. We have been providing hardware components, solutions and services for these industrial processes for 50 years.

It is the combination of our powerful platform and the hardware technology of Sensorica, vision, auscultation, its services that allows us to be leaders and that forces us to have this hybrid business model I am talking about.

And I assure you that this is not always an easy task, although it is certainly exciting and disruptive.

This hybrid business model forces us to design a platform business model in which the exchange of information between consumer and producer is special. Since in our case the person who consumes the information we provide is the same person who produces it, what we do is provide simplicity and intelligence so that their business is digitised and cloud-based. Furthermore, in our model we are also the producers, as well as third parties from our Marketplace, which helps us to be able to unify criteria in terms of traditional business model and platform.

What does not vary much is the exchange of currency, which can follow any of the already implemented models, starting with the traditional fee-for-service model and its maintenance up to the pure SaaS model.

INDUSTRIAL IoT PLATFORM GROWTH

It is clear that the decision to build our own platform has not been taken lightly, as we have decided to go it alone and we know that many things will have to be developed or supervised by us. And we are aware that the growth of the platform will be conditioned by this. Therefore, we will have to move our traditional business to an ecommerce/Marketplace that will help us to create a symbiotic relationship between the pure MonoM platform and the ecommerce of our traditional business. This will allow us to expand our capabilities as a platform, but it will require extra efforts, although welcome, in my opinion. We believe it is an ideal way to convert part of our traditional hardware distribution business into a platform business.

In fact, there is a reality that we are working on, which is to create a platform business model that allows the own brand and the white label, either in the sense of offering our platform as a white label to certain types of companies that need to have their own platform, to promote their services and/or products either for the market in general or for specific sectors, such as renewable energies. One of the most active and growing sectors at the moment.

A clear case in point is machinery manufacturers, whose rate of inclusion of IoT components continues to grow, but whose business is not the platform behind it, but the manufacturing and marketing of that machinery.

This need is also a factor that has made us decide to have our own platform, as in this way we can develop two lines of business in parallel with a common base of functionalities and features, but then customised.

according to the needs of the customer who contracts the white label or the customer who contracts the industrial IoT service from us.

HYBRID TALENT KEY TO SUCCESS

There is one interesting point I would like to make today, which I think is rarely discussed at such meetings.

I know that the topic of "talent management" is a hackneyed one. But I really believe that this is a fundamental pillar for the success of our platforms.

In our case, in particular, but in my opinion it should be the same in all cases, it is essential to integrate profiles of different kinds and experiences so that the sum of all this leads us to the success we hope for.

Unifying the technological knowledge and trends, the ambition of their youth, their desire for constant learning and their innovative and groundbreaking drive of the most technological profiles we have, such as AI Consultants, Frontend Developers, data scientists and others with more mature and experienced profiles, knowledgeable in traditional business models and platform models, but with the ability to move between customers (millennials to baby boomers), allows us to have an ideal balance to be able to push the business of the IoT industrial platform realistically and effectively.

WHAT MAKES YOU CHOOSE OWN/INDEPENDENT/NICHO IoT PLATFORMS?

Choosing the right IoT platform can be daunting for any industry considering it. There are many options and for each of them you have to look at each layer of the IoT technology stack to find what best suits your needs.

When selecting an IoT platform, you need to look at much more than the technical capabilities of your solution. What you are looking for is a combination of technical, business and operational capabilities that fit the customer's strategy and where they are in their product adoption lifecycle.

For example, if you are in the early stages of your journey, you should focus on IoT platforms that can help you build and test prototypes very quickly. Scalability, cost and feature set should be less of a concern.

As it moves towards adapting to the embedded business and its processes and scale, the focus should shift to IoT platforms with more scalability, stability.

I would highlight 5 key areas in the selection of an IoT platform:

Company with a reputation. IoT is risky enough. Entrusting the core of your product to an unknown company could backfire. Be sure to evaluate their reputation, stability, finances and track record. We have this via our parent company (Alava Group) with almost 50 years of experience marketing, installing and maintaining what is now called IoT technology.

Broad ecosystem. IoT is so big that there is no way a single company can master it all. Finding a company with a strong ecosystem of applications and partners will be a good investment for optionality and expansion. Most of the major IoT platform vendors are not in the hardware business themselves, but have a strong ecosystem of partners to pull from. That is always a good sign.

Open APIs. Extensibility will be key, so make sure you select a provider that gives you programmatic access to as much of your functionality as possible.

Vertical approach. Aligning with a vendor that understands your industry is always an advantage. Their solution will be designed to handle your type of data and analytics, and will even help you comply with industry regulations. I would highlight this as one of the reasons we chose to build our own platform. This way we would not be constrained by a "mother" platform that would not allow us to transfer all of our market and sector expertise into the platform.

Good integration. Adopting a new platform is not trivial. Look for companies that have a strong solutions (or professional services) department that can train your team, help you with the architecture and guide you through the proof-of-concept phase.

There are many companies that choose platforms already created with a lot of reputation and the support of a large company, just because of the reputation, because they believe that they will have solved many needs of interoperability and because they will have the guarantee of continuity, and once they do it they realise that the specialisation in IoT and business processes is rather general than specific to the industry and that to achieve the desired results they have to invest in too many "customisations" that consume time and money, which they did not count on.

Antonio Ramírez - CMO Álava Group