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Digitizing Agent: “So far, we have charged a total of 0 euros for the bonuses”

“At first, the Digital kit It was the best project that had been proposed by the Government of Spain to increase the productivity of Spanish SMEs. In our case, we are dedicated to processes, the idea was fantastic because we could do what we know best in companies that were not digitized.

That was the theorythen there is reality, that the Digital Kit comes out and…

First, they approve us to be digitizing agents, but we found the first problem when customers have to sign the solutions. Most are small businesses and freelancers, most without a digital signature, so you have to be behind them.

For example, for the development of a web page of 2,000 euros we have to be calling the customer a thousand times and acting as “police” to tell them how to get the digital voucher and the signature. Once we get him to sign it, we execute it and those from Red.es begin to say that it has to be accessible. If the website has videos or images, as it is necessarily accessible to people with vision problems, the cost of the website increases by 600 euros, in order to pass the corresponding audit.

Then, to justify the work, we have to pay and advance the license of the program for a year and our cost already rises to 2,500 or 3,000 euros. Of these amounts, we will charge 1,400 or 1,500 euros within six, eight or twelve months. Let’s go, a priori, we have already incurred an expense of 3,000 euros per client, of which we will charge half.

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Therefore we are no longer going to make websites for Digital Kit clients, none.

It is a disaster.

The same thing happens with projects of 12,000 euros. The client agrees but then does not sign. It costs a lot because of what we have said before, most of them are small businesses or self-employed people who do not know about this. It means that once we get them to sign on and implement the processes and solutions, we also have to train them because otherwise they don’t use it. We put the ERP on it, we give it the customer base, we integrate everything and we have to be on top of them so that they use it. Once they do, it becomes a fantastic thing for the business, but the work costs more.

The calls, the meetings, the personal visits… there are clients we have gone to six times to visit them with a systems engineer and a technician. Even so, some of them continue without signing the solutions because they do not see it clearly. In the end we have to give up continuing with them as a digitizing agent.

Another example that I give you. We have signed an agreement with a professional association, to whom we have made the website and the online store. In order to connect it with their systems, we need the users to give us the integration APIs and for them they charge us 2,000 euros. But if the website we make is worth only 2,000 euros! How are we going to do this job if only the integration that we have to pay costs the same as what we are going to charge? Are we going to lose another 2,000 euros? It does not make any sense.

The Digital Kit is something very good, but it is very poorly planned.

For example, the integration of APIs with existing systems should be included, at least a few hours of integration. Also a training time for customers because, otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense. if you don’t give trainingyou throw away the money because the client does not know how to use the tools and is not going to renew them in the medium term, which is what it is about.

Today, we have charged a total of 0 euros for the bonuses. However, we have already signed around 30.

We have encountered delays in all parts of the process: from the request, which we made in March 2022 and was resolved on December 29, in the first business segment; until approval and collection. All this creates an added problem for us, which is that we implement management solutions whose license must be paid in advance. (about 1,000 euros each). And then we have to wait more than a year and a half to collect.

Total, that the more we sell the more we lose.

There has come a time when we no longer have money and we cannot invest more. We have even opened lines of credit at Bankinter, which is an entity associated with Red.es. What happened? that the advances have expired and, since the Administration has not paid, they have blocked our lines. Instead of clearing up among themselves, because it would be logical and not harm us who now leave us tied hand and foot.

Until now, we have invested about 150,000 euros from our pocketwhich we give up.

They are the payrolls of six people for a year. And we could recover it if everything went well, since we have the expertise, we know what to do, our systems are trained and our engineers handle the necessary software and processes very well… If it worked, we could recover all the investment without No problem, but since it doesn’t work, we had to consider alternatives.

From now on, if we accept Digital Kit bonds, we will not execute them until they pay the previous ones.

This digitizing agent wants to remain anonymous. If you want to send us your complaint about the Digital Kit you can write to info@tpnet.es.

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