Digital marketing, internet positioning, cloud services, ‘chat bots’ … In recent years, all kinds of specialized consultancies have proliferated that help smaller companies in their transformation.
The companies that help others to enter the new way of doing business have proliferated in recent years and have become essential for many small companies that were looking for their direction in the face of the unavoidable change of digital transformation. After the bad luck of forced, fast digitization and in some cases without any kind of planning, many companies have found themselves in the position of undertaking something for which they need advice, strategy, or training, in addition to a defined technological preparation.
Existing in the digital field requires specific support and developments. Digital marketing and advertising are the most visible links in a chain that begins by equipping itself with technology to change business workflows. Positioning services on the internet, those of social networks, those of big data or chatbots (a type of AI) for user service are basic issues to advance in a good digital transformation.
According to the strategic consultancy and technology services Accenture, 85% of Spanish companies have already planned to increase their investment in digitization in June of 2021. But the transformation is something profound. “It’s not just a question of technology,” says Belén Díaz, the partner responsible for Digital Corporate Solutions at the KPMG consultancy in Spain. “It’s necessary to equip oneself with an increasingly diverse set of multidisciplinary profiles, capable of working as a team with the professionals of the companies that have to tackle this transformation, and jointly ensuring that changes take place and people assimilate them.”
Apart from internal management and the need for digital training for staff, companies that engage in this type of help range from simple hosting to a service of servers in the cloud that leaves the rest of the procedures in charge of themselves. Client to companies that have been born specialized to manage specific needs or those that offer the complete package. Even start-ups sometimes help digital transformation by discovering applications that favor a change in a business.
They can be small or large companies, both advisory and consulting or development in all areas such as big data, CRM, e-commerce, or the use of AI, among other areas of the digital transformation process. They don’t always give assistance only to transform a company but also provide a rental of services. Outsourcing of this type is a good help especially for SMEs, and many have access to large big databases.
Digitizing offers real and long-term competitive advantages, but in many cases, it was considered as “an automation of processes” and not so much as “a lever for transformation,” says Díaz. And this is not so easy to achieve. “Many companies do this, but not all achieve the goal.”
Например, по вопросам облачных вычислений Accenture предупреждает, что организации, переходящие в облако только для экономии средств, рискуют потерять конкурентные преимущества. Желая повысить свою конкурентоспособность за счет развития облака, компании планируют перенести более двух третей своих задач в ближайшие три-пять лет, но только половина использует весь потенциал облака в его различных формах для преобразования своей деятельности. . По мнению Accenture, наибольшая ценность облака заключается в том, что оно рассматривается «как континуум технологий, поддерживаемых 5G и программно-определяемыми сетями, которые помогают удовлетворять постоянно меняющиеся потребности бизнеса».
COMPANIES IN FULL REINVENTION
For Belén Díaz, the companies that have taken the most advantage of the acceleration that the Covid-19 has induced to digital transformation are those that have been able to create business models in digital environments, in a very good way (native – Amazon, Glovo, Cabify, Clicars, etc.), or those that have quickly created digital platforms that offer an omnichannel user experience (Inditex).
The challenge now, in Belén Díaz’s opinion, is how digitization can also help in the field of the supply chain and in relation to the key role of the supplier.
TO LEAD IN EUROPE
“It’s necessary for companies to reinvent themselves to remain or become global leaders,” says Domingo Mirón, president of Accenture in Spain, Portugal, and Israel.
According to the report Reinventing the European company, from this consulting firm, companies believe that, in order to position the Spanish business sector as a leader in Europe, investments in technology should focus on artificial intelligence (71%), 5G (54%), hybrid cloud (54%), next-generation batteries (34%) and data analytics (22%).
