New Finep Software has R$ 500 million for program acquisition and implementation

Around 47% of Brazilian companies identify the need to promote digital transformation driven by the use of technologies from the “fourth industrial revolution”, and thus guarantee its competitiveness with the radical improvement of its performance, according to a recent research by IDC (“Benchmark iDX Business Digitalization”). Aware of this demand, Finep created a program to support the acquisition of software and implementation services, with R$ 500 million available over the next three years. The objective of Finep Software is to encourage greater use of information and communication technologies by national companies.
 
As of June 2019, Brazilian companies of any size with projects starting at R$ 150,000 can apply for funding. Companies with annual or annualized gross operating revenue of up to R$ 90 million must submit funding requests to financial agents accredited to operate Finep's decentralized resources, within the scope of Finep Innovative Acquisition. Companies with revenues above R$ 90 million must submit projects directly to Finep. Expenses will be accepted in all activities related to the acquisition and commercialization of software, related activities (such as training) and respective implementation by Brazilian companies.

Current scenario

According to a survey by IDC – International Data Corporation, which measured the digitalization index in business in Brazil and analyzed the digital transformation in companies in the country, on a scale from 0 to 100 points, the general index of digitalization of businesses in the country reached 67.5 points.

A study carried out by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) in early 2018 shows that, of 24 Brazilian industrial sectors, more than half (14, including clothing and textiles) are far behind in the adoption of digital technologies. The CNI found that these sectors are at risk of being excluded from the so-called “fourth industrial revolution” – which will be based on the digitization and robotization of factories and production processes to increase efficiency.

According to Marcio Girão, director of Finep, "the Finep Software program meets the funder's objectives in the sense of inducing an increase in competitiveness and productivity in national companies and, at the same time, strengthening the Information and Communication Technology segment, which are the pillars of digital transformation, absolutely necessary to sustain these companies in generating wealth and increasingly qualified jobs”.

In the opinion of Francisco Camargo, president of the ABES Deliberative Council, this new Finep program meets a request from ABES, presented to the funder on several occasions. “We have been talking with Finep showing that Brazilian companies were behind in IT because of the crisis and that this was impacting economic productivity. At the same time, companies had fallen far behind in updating information security systems, which increased the country's overall vulnerability. We congratulate Finep for this program, because it will also finance the demand side of ICT investments in all productive sectors”, he concludes.