According to McKinsey, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital technologies by seven years. This means greater adoption of the Cloud, technologies such as the Internet of Things and cybersecurity. However, in order to do so, companies must have a focus on productivity and intelligent development.
At the Inter.Mx Expansión Summit 2022 Panel, four experts spoke on the subject: Octavio Camarena Villaseñor, director of KIO IT Services, Marco Jimenez, General Director and Executive Director of Lenovo Mexico, Angela Gómez, general director of SAP Mexico and Jaime Berditchevsky, CEO of Kaspersky Mexico. This is what they shared:
The needs of a connected and intelligent world
“Digitalization has to be applied to the business,” Angela Gómez mentioned. According to her, there are four fundamental pillars for a company to achieve its digitization process in the best way:
- Flexibility: that customers or companies that want to go digital can choose with whom and, for that, there is a very wide range of technology companies.
- Return on investment: be aware that investing in technology has to bring a business benefit.
- Industry specialization: technology companies are leveraging and betting on growth.
- Being on secure platforms: the market offers numerous opportunities that you have to take advantage of.
Regarding the issue of the cloud, Gómez commented that at first the companies saw it as an issue of cost optimization. “Today it is already seen with the theme of value”, because it is the flexibility of serving customers in the correct way that gives value to the company.
Octavio Camarena emphasized that the main gaps they identify in companies are not technical, but cultural. “You have to start from the top”, because CEOs and people in high command have to be more digitally literate so that companies can evolve”.
In hard data, countries like Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay are the Top 3 in the region according to the Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2021, with a score above 50.02 on a scale of 100. However, in Mexico there is every once again a challenge in specialized talent, especially in IT and Cybersecurity.
Given this, Camarena shared that part of Kio’s vision is to hire recently graduated talent: “We have become a hotbed of talent. We don’t want to hire the big experts. You want there to be a healthy rotation, but for people to grow within the industry”. According to him, to retain talent, they have to feel comfortable with the purpose of corporations. “Let there be a sense of belonging,” he shared.
Berditchevsky emphasized that cybersecurity “is everyone’s responsibility, not just the systems department” and that cybersecurity starts from home.
This is because the impact that a company can have, more than damaging its data, is reputational damage. “During the first months of last year there were almost five attacks every second on the remote connections part. It grew 600%. It is an issue that needs to be raised”, mainly because “we have life on the phone”.
Finally, Marco Jimenez shared that, today, technology has to be transformed to be consumed in a friendlier and easier way, and not only as a capital expense, but as an operating expense of companies.
Some keys that he shared for companies to continue with the hybrid model is that, in addition to being more inclusive, more sustainable companies and improving the experience of collaborators, they must focus on productivity.
“That collaborative environments, such as a physical office, are truly innovative spaces, where ideas are generated and not just focused on how to get people to be there when it is not necessarily the most productive. Many paradigms have been broken. We have changed our site” , he concludes.
