Carlos Ortiz, director of the SME segment of Vodafone Business shows the context in which SMEs are found in terms of digitalization and bets because they take a step forward to avoid future problems.
Vodafone Business are a partner for SMEs when it comes to digitizing, which do you consider that they are the main challenges by adopting new technologies?
In the first place, to say that the passage to new technologies is not something optional for SMEs, neither for SMEs nor for any company, and is that, currently, the SME faces four challenges. The first is the financial resources, because if you analyze where the resources are allocated by small businesses in this country, there are very few that have a game destined for this type of technology and to address digitalization. The second point is the lack of knowledge of the solutions. There are many companies that are capable of detecting a certain problem, but the reality is that when they face the market they say, ok, I have a billing problem, a process problem, but how do I solve it? What tools are in the market to solve it? The third point would be change resistance, especially in traditional sectors that have historically defined processes. And it is true that many companies, even having the resources and having the vocation and finding the solution, end up leaving because they say, if people are not going to use it. So, I think that is a very important part. And linked to this, the fourth point would be the lack of internal qualified personnel. That is, someone has to lead and implant solutions and maintain them within organizations.
What role does Vodafone play in this regard?
Vodafone is raised as a catalyst for such solutions. The first, because we have a super powerful network, what you can is to build on that layer of communications, service layers, and in the end, we within that process of digitalization of SMEs, what we do is work, first, the porpholio of proper products to be able to address it, and then in the formats that a SME can be allowed. That is, solutions that are scalable, that do not require a strong investment initially, solutions that allow them to produce very fast and gain very fast in efficiency and competitiveness.
On competitiveness, what can companies that companies improve in this regard?
A company is competitive from the point of view of decision -making, that is, to be able to share data in mobility, to be able to have all the data hosted in a cloud that everyone can access, in the end what it does is that your company can make more accurate decisions in a shorter time and this obviously increases competitiveness, which is closely related to automation, but it is not exactly the same. And finally, and although it is already quite common, I think SME has not yet taken that step, internationalization. That is, as well as your labor market is the world because you can access people you could not access before, your client is also in the world.
What are the main products that offer SMEs and how do they help them improve their competitiveness?
Well, I think we can divide it into three points. There is a layer that is the cybersecurity layer, solutions related to the job, and then business solutions. In the cybersecurity part, what is evident is that this wave of digitalization, cloud services, what it does is that every time in a more hybrid work environment there are more attacks. Because? Because the information is no longer focused on a single site. And from that point of view, I believe that Vodafone is doing a very good job. Above all this year we have fulfilled a very important milestone, which is to have our own cybersecurity department and the range is watching three different points. The first, prevention, which is the most important, both from a point of view of cyber attacks, logical and physical security.
Then, the impact limitation, because cybercriminals are increasingly skilled. We have a product called SD-Wan, which we use in SMEs, and it is surprising to see the amount of cyberators that we are able to stop, which can be hundreds per month. And the third point is the recovery of normality. That is, the first thing, that does not happen to you. If it happens to you, limit the impacts and then be able to have a plan to return to normal in hours. Regarding the workplace solutions, what we are chasing with collaboration tools is to complete that anyone can work anywhere in the world as if they were in their office. With the same quality in the network, because in the end we work on a mobile network and fixed very powerful, but also with the same access to the data, being able to make meetings evidently from anywhere in the world, share information in real time, help in decision making, everything that has to do with tools that allow ubiquity.
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