Digital transformation, the big challenge for businesses

Mosiri Cabezas, Director of Digital Transformation and Business Acceleration at Telefónica, gave a presentation on what she calls the digital revolution. She explained that “companies have changed from offering products to offering services. Companies like Telefónica have had to reinvent themselves to adapt to the new needs of the digital age, in this new world where a company's strength resides in digital platforms rather than old infrastructures, in platforms that have to be global, secure, open and robust, employing APIs to achieve continuous improvement".

During her talk she explained that “we are in a corporate world that is completely liquid, where companies are increasingly mixed: banks with telcos, banks with retailers, etc. All aimed at giving users as complete a service as possible on one platform”.

Telefónica's Director of Digital Transformation and Business Acceleration also spoke of the challenges raised by digital transformation, such as changing from know-how to know-who and gave what she considers to be the three keys to companies transforming correctly: "necessity, regardless of whether they are SMEs or large enterprises, they all need to adapt; speed, the pace of change in our society is ever faster, internet took 7 years to reach 100K users, while a game like Candy Crush took only 3; humility, companies have to set aside their egos, despite great achievements in the past; and finally, courage, we must dare to innovate".

Mosiri Cabezas ended her talk saying that “being digital is a question of attitude”.

Nacho de Pinedo, CEO of ISDI, who defines himself as a digital optimist, said that “what we are going through is the change of an era rather than an era of change”. And he confesses that he is happy to be in this moment. He explained that "digital transformation is a transformation of value, which involves delivering value and, consequently, the acquisition and generation of value by companies".

The CEO of ISDI gave the keys for all digital businesses: digital vision, talent (where the true challenge lies) and the market.

Nacho de Pinedo also spoke about the new sectors that have opened up in the digital age, creating jobs that did not exist before – and that many people are still unaware of –, related to eCommerce, social media, Big Data, the Internet of things, etc, and about the challenge this presents to companies, which must find professionals with the right profiles to cover these digital needs. This challenge is largely due to universities not adapting as they should to the digital age, and continuing to teach the same subjects as 20 years ago.

He ended his talk saying that “digital transformation is not a goal, it is a strategy”.

The last speakers to take the stage were Ángel Alloza, CEO of Corporate Excellence and Iván Pino, Director of Online Communication at Llorente & Cuenca, who gave a presentation on the “Balance of Online Expressions in 2016”, prepared jointly by Corporate Excellence and Llorente & Cuenca.

This study analyzes expressions found on the Internet and their impact on the dimensions that make up corporate reputation. This fifth edition analyzes the digital footprint of 71 brands in 15 different sectors, with a total of 88,950 URLs and 28,000 mentions. The study highlights the following points: fashion has taken over from consumer electronics as the main sector in terms of reputation; there is a glimpse of economic recovery in companies; the challenge of achieving hyper- transparency and listening for expectations; critical conversation related to employment; they emphasized that companies lack a network of ambassadors; the need to communicate corporate values and purpose; and, finally, criticisms raining down in Facebook.