Barcelona: A Roman Village Becoming a Smart City

Carlos Carrasco, Pascual Berrone, Joan Enric Ricart
IESE BUSINESS SCHOOL
On July 2, 2014, Josep Ramon Ferrer, director of ICT and smart city strategy at Barcelona City Council, finished the second round of meetings with the companies selected to participate in the competitive dialogue to create the City OS, Barcelona's operating system. The City OS was one of the key milestones in Barcelona's smart city strategy. The City OS aimed to provide the City Council with the ability to acquire and process data from urban operations in a rapid, efficient, effective and sustainable way. The project was complex, not only due to technical difficulties but also because of strategic and operational challenges. These included divergent visions and strategies between the City Council and companies, cultural change inside the public sector and the need for cooperation between companies.
The aim of the case is to discuss the difficulties of moving from strategy to implementation, the alignment of different incentives and visions across stakeholders, and the use of new methods of procurement, as well as competitive dialogue between companies.