Introducting Atrebo’s trusted asset and lifecycle management platform

Many MNOs and towercos continue to struggle to optimise processes by consolidating data across complex asset and infrastructure workflows and lifecycles. To that purpose, a new platform has emerged, Atrebo’s Tool for Real Estate Efficiency (TREE). Defined by the MNOs’ specific requirements around site acquisition, inventory and contract management, TREE is now one of Telefónica’s most widely deployed technology platforms. Ahead of Atrebo’s debut at TowerXchange Meetup Europe, we caught up with CEO Jesús del Estad to learn about the origins and capabilities of this impressive new platform.

TowerXchange: Please introduce Atrebo, the company and its footprint.

We are a Spanish company specialising in the development and implementation of asset and infrastructure management solutions. We have broken into the market and in a very short time we have managed to position our assets and infrastructure management platform TREE (Tool for Real Estate Efficiency) as a market benchmark for the integrated management of the lifecycle of assets and infrastructures, covering operational, contractual, and financial management for the most important European and global telecommunications operators such as Telefónica and Vodafone.

From a technical point of view, the design of TREE’s software means it can be installed instantly, can interface with other platforms and can be tailored to suit our customers’ needs thanks to a high level of configurability. We can easily make the customisations which our customers require, or which are driven by changing legislation, without compromising the simplicity and standardisation of operational and business processes.

In terms of our commercial models, at Atrebo we look at options that are best suited to our customers, working through licensing, pure SaaS and software services on our clients’ internal networks.

Finally, a key factor in our success has been a corporate culture where prevailing values are efficiency and agility to ensure rapid deployment and a service adjusted to the needs of the customer.

All of this has led us to achieving a presence in more than 14 European and American countries within just two years. Our headquarters are in Spain and we operate subsidiaries with autonomous operational resources in America to offer our clients a more local service, so decisions and solutions can be offered on site from local experts. Our strategic plan includes new office openings in new geographies in the coming months.

TowerXchange: What are the origins of Atrebo and can you tell us about some of your customers?

Although we founded the company eight years ago, our most important milestone took place in the year 2015 when Telefónica opened a process to select a global site management platform (we had already completed pilots and proofs of concept). After a competitive process, Telefónica chose the Atrebo platform over some longer-established site management and ERP platforms, and we started collaborating with them in 2016. We have a global umbrella framework with Telefónica, but have successfully made a business case for implementation in each country – Atrebo is currently deployed in 13 of Telefónica’s 21 markets, and we’re implementing our solution in another key market soon.

Telefónica has backed Atrebo, and they are happy with the work we’ve done – not just with the platform and functionality, but with our agile performance in the deployment and the actualisation of services.

TowerXchange: Please tell us a little more about the different modules and functionality enabled by Atrebo.

We have developed a modular platform, able to integrate with different workflows.

At the heart of the platform is our assets module, which tracks mobile or fixed network assets throughout their lifecycle, connecting successive workflows for site acquisition, contract management, passive and active equipment inventory et cetera. This is enabled by powerful workflow engines: task management and role management, such that the platform becomes a collaborative hub where a towerco or MNO, and their contractors and vendors, can execute transactions.

The Head of IT at one of our largest customers described TREE as “much more than a platform to execute daily tasks – it’s a truly transformational platform, enabling site management and network efficiencies through advanced analytics – transforming the way assets are managed.”

TowerXchange: You can help European tower owners to deliver improved productivity across their tower portfolios, can you talk to us about how Atrebo does this and what kind of measurable results you can deliver?

In my opinion, it doesn’t make sense to implement any tool unless it leads to productivity improvements, either due to its technical output, economic-financial tracking, organisational improvements or any other type of derivative.

In TREE our offering is based on four pillars: a consistent database; operational and analytical capabilities; workflows for each activity; and finally dashboards and reports of state and situation. This dynamic applies to each of the modules that TREE manages, such as acquisitions, energy, installations or legalisation (there are over 20 modules in total). We offer knowledge and analysis to enable our clients to make the best possible decisions in each task and in each concrete circumstance.

The result involves both direct impacts on the income statement including optimising capex investment, reducing opex costs, or improving revenues and profit margins, and indirect impacts such as improvement in the management of suppliers, management accounting, conflict reduction and providing the best commercial information to the client.

Ultimately, what makes TREE so special is its ability to deliver efficiency through productivity (a key factor even in its acronym, Tool for Real Estate Efficiency). We are proud to say that many of our clients have internally justified the implementation of TREE by targeting and achieving very demanding quantifiable efficiencies and savings.

TowerXchange: It’s often said that it’s hard to cut costs in European tower portfolios, which have grid power access and fewer maintenance requirements than towers in Africa or Asia. Can you talk to us about cost management in Europe, and give some examples of where savings can be made?

In my previous response I mentioned direct and indirect impacts as a result of the implementation of TREE, but going beyond this: in Atrebo, we assist our clients in the identification of new efficiencies and the evolution of improvements across their businesses, which we translate into new functionalities and good practices in the platform.

In that sense, in TREE we differentiate ourselves by continuously incorporating intelligent elements to identify and optimise processes and operations and integrating technologies and convergent network typologies that directly result in reducing costs and margin improvements.

In addition, TREE drives the digital transformation of operators and towercos as an integrating factor, creating a relational ecosystem among them that again impacts on productivity improvements.

TowerXchange: It’s one thing to collect vast amounts of data through IoT, another to actually make good use of it. How do you work with your customers to identify and use the data which will really help them to deliver results in terms of productivity, visibility and accountability?

Atrebo has developed a specific platform that we have named IoTREE for IoT projects and specifically for Smart City projects.

Our objective as a company remains the same but adapted to the characteristics of this framework. IoTREE manages the complete life cycle of both devices and the infrastructures where they are installed. We follow a transversal model, offering our tool as the manager of the elements that use the final services. We collaborate and integrate with the other actors in Smart Cities, from operators to site owners, manufacturers, managed service providers, et cetera.

TowerXchange: For towercos in particular, interfacing with customers and service providers is critical. How does Atrebo facilitate user interfacing across multiple organisations?

TREE facilitates and promotes the interaction between suppliers and customers to promote the advantages of a connected ecosystem. The definition of different profiles, direct portals of communication, interaction in the different processes, internal and external alerting systems, and reports examining comparative performance are features that have been designed precisely to make the relationship between operators and towercos more efficient and profitable.

TREE offers its customers solutions designed to optimise and supplement the interaction between them and their suppliers, thereby allowing both to benefit by creating favourable environments for new purchases, coordinating the management of both through process sharing, operational channels, improving communication, document management and billing of their services, among others.

TowerXchange: How do you see the future of 5G deployment in Europe from Atrebo? Is your TREE tool ready for the breakthrough that this new technology will bring?

Atrebo has participated in several 5G pilot projects with leading operators, equipment suppliers, universities and managed service companies to adapt the resulting best practices to the digital process management environment, new devices, infrastructures and services.

Our vision of being a 360° both asset lifecycle services platform, and a radio technologies and land solution leads us to a continual process of innovation, improvement and learning that we share with our customers, suppliers and the sector as a whole.