We are all aware that the arrival of the pandemic revolutionized and transformed the entire society, forcing it to adapt to a new uncertain and unstable reality through the acceleration of digital transformation. This Tuesday marks the three-year anniversary of the declaration of the state of alarm in Spain and the moment in which companies began to massively adopt various measures in favor of their digital strategies, in order to continue operating normally.
Thus, on the occasion of this third anniversary, Hiscox has analyzed the current reality of this digital transformation, implemented since the pandemic, through its I Report on SMEs and the Self-Employed in Spainwhich highlights aspects such as teleworking, electronic commerce, presence in social networks and Digital Marketing strategies.
Before the arrival of COVID, remote work was considered a residual modality but, as of March 2020, it seemed that it was here to stay, especially after the approval of the government decree-law that regulates teleworking. However, the reality that emerges from the report is that less than half of SMEs (45.8%) have maintained this modality as an option after the pandemic and, among those that continue to offer it, 54.2% acknowledge that teleworking it is back to pre-pandemic levels.
In addition, concern for digital transformation and the introduction of new technologies has occupied one of the top positions in the challenges that SMEs have to face for years, and these processes were also boosted during the pandemic.
However, and according to the Hiscox report, currently only 54.6% of small and medium-sized companies have a well-defined digital strategy and the percentage of companies that are already applying it is only 42.9%. Business models based on the use of digital technologies run better luck since, according to the report, 70% of SMEs claim to have already developed one. The clearest example is that 40.8% of companies already have e-commerce strategies implemented, but also that companies also increased their strategies in Digital Marketing and presence in the main social networks. Thus, currently, the percentage of SMEs that have implemented a strategy of this style amounts to 61.9%.
Digitization for more efficiency
In addition, according to the results of the report, the implementation of digitization measures has meant greater efficiency for 36.2% of SMEs and cost savings for 30%. Precisely, to help implement these digital strategies and help SMEs to make the digital leap, the Next Generation EU funds were created, which in Spain have crystallized in the so-called Digital Kit, within the Government’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. However, according to the data from the Hiscox report, only 2.4% of Spanish SMEs had applied for this aid in the middle of last year, and another 87.6% did not plan to do so in the future.
“The pandemic hit many people hard, drastically transformed the socio-economic and technological environment and made clearer than ever the need for SMEs to commit to digitization, as well as the importance of knowing how to adapt to changes. After three years, it is interesting to analyze how the implementation of the measures that companies began to adopt in 2020 in order to adapt to a time when the only certainty was digitization has evolved. However, the results confirm that there is still a lot of work to be done in this regard. From Hiscox we want to accompany the Spanish SMEs that are committed to this change and help them prepare and face the possible risks that are associated with the ever-changing digital world.”, says David Heras, CEO of Hiscox Iberia.
