*By Filippo Di Cesare
Change of government, war on the international scene, inflation and economic recession. These are some of the challenges that scare the Brazilian business community at the beginning of the year. In such a scenario, the most common reaction is to respond to economic uncertainty with spending cuts, rather than advocating for more investment. However, it is time to rethink this dynamic.
As an alternative, technology is proving to be a strong driving force behind the transformation of business and society, as well as an ally for business survival in the year that is just beginning.
According to research by McKinsey & Company, if the market continues at the same pace as the last few decades, 75% of the large companies that are in the S&P 500 – the largest US companies equaling about 80% of total capitalization – will disappear and become irrelevant by 2027.
The focus of digital investment has been increasingly transformed, as technology plays a more important role in delivering value to the organization. In this way, rethinking the business model around a more digital approach is to create a new competitive advantage and even new value propositions.
So, the question is: is it possible to start seeing technological investments, moving from a cost-cutting point of view, to a revenue generation perspective in times of crisis?
Focus, purpose and courage are not the only elements needed to achieve this change. It is necessary to establish a strategy that does not exclude external ecosystems, which avoid wasting resources and enable them to have a budget policy focused on the company's own characteristics and that can guarantee greater flexibility and more investments.
Currently, companies that change their work format and adapt to more open business models become more agile and assertive. 2023 will continue to evolve and the traditional sourcing model will be increasingly surpassed by the growth and adoption of a technological ecosystem organization model. In this sense, some technologies will be boosted.
One of them is the APIs (Application Programming Interface), which play an important role in the creation of a collaborative architecture, capable of generating new business models based on ecosystems. By sharing partner and third-party resources, you can gain flexibility and focus on the investments needed to enrich the customer experience, enabling innovative monetization.
In this path, we also have data, whose management is not only focused on a holistic and transparent view of business performance, but can also be the basis for the evolution of the value proposition. In addition, they represent the main asset in the hands of companies, as they can be monetized, representing a great example of revenue generation.
Thinking at a national level, digital is one of the main political levers in the hands of the government to support Brazil's development. Today, data justifies how digital has the potential to increase productivity and innovate the value generation chain from new business models.
Another lever of social policies are high-speed broadband networks, which provide individuals and companies with access to educational and government services, which help to reduce inequality, a fundamental premise for any economic and social development. In 2023, 5G, the technological trend of the year, tends to spread more and more across the country and can be a differentiator for companies.
In this sense, the government plays a central role as a legislator and as an economic entity, and needs to democratize and reduce bureaucracy in technology applications to encourage entrepreneurs to focus on Brazil, so that national technological skills are developed, instead of buying technology. shipped from abroad. This is where the need to foster partnerships with educational institutions to train talent comes in, which is necessary for us to receive incentives and leave a GDP based on commodities.
Still looking to add value, a possible path is to reinforce Open Government and Open Data policies, which are necessary for companies to use public data to form open ecosystems and accelerate the economy. In this sense, data and API, already mentioned above, continue to act as enabling technologies for the government.
As everything ends up being a cultural change, companies that still see technology as an element and not a fundamental part of their culture must rethink their work format, as it is the way to generate competitive advantages, in addition to new value propositions and business models.
In 2023, it is up to organizations and the government to understand that the presence of a digital offer, as well as an adequate infrastructure, are fundamental elements to make the country more attractive for investments and overcome a moment of recession. The result is the appreciation of our currency, inflationary control and, finally, a thriving and prosperous market.
*Filippo di Cesare is Latam CEO of Engineering, a global Information Technology and Consulting company specializing in Digital Transformation.
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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