More than half of Argentine SMEs plan to invest in digitization during 2023

By Movistar Companies

This is a machine translation of the original press release issued in Spanish

Argentina, February 2, 2023.- 52% of SMEs in the country plan to invest more in their digital transformation, according to the Digital Adoption Survey carried out by Movistar Empresas during 2022. This survey was carried out among 1,405 micro, small and medium-sized companies from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The survey addressed questions about companies' digital adoption levels, their business needs, and the digital marketing services they use and need. Among other relevant findings, it is found that 54% of SMEs consider that the greatest benefit offered by digitization is the improvement in profitability and that 61% recently decided to train their employees to develop digital skills. In addition, 24% indicate that digitization allows them to generate significant savings in their businesses.

The local findings for Argentina are aligned with the trend towards digitization that SMEs throughout the region showed. The study showed that 89% of SMEs in Latin America plan to invest more in their digital transformation, while 43% already have digital collaboration tools for their business and 48% confirm that digitalization contributes to increasing their sales. .

“SMEs in our country are increasingly recognized for their contributions to economic growth. This is very encouraging and, at Movistar, we seek to support this growth through services and products that promote digital transformation to improve the operating models of companies and their efficiency," said Santiago Barca, Director of Movistar Empresas Argentina.  

Digital priorities  

The results of the Digital Adoption Survey also indicate that among the priorities of Argentine SMEs is cybersecurity, a necessity for businesses regardless of their size. In this sense, 37% of the SMEs surveyed already have cybersecurity solutions for their company's network, 50% plan to adopt in the short term and 13% still do not want to adopt.

Regarding the adoption of the cloud, 50% of SMEs in the country plan to migrate to it to save IT costs, become more flexible and agile. Likewise, 30% have already adopted this solution and 20% do not wish to do so.

The digitization of Argentine SMEs, with the changes brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, was imminent and they currently continue to adapt to new technologies that allow them to be competitive and meet the needs of their businesses. According to the survey, 63% plan to adopt omnichannel solutions to maintain 360° communication with their customers.

Another key point is the continuous training on the tools offered by the digital world. 32% of those surveyed stated that they had offered training to improve the performance of their employees with a view to optimizing the adoption of the changes brought about by digitization. Precisely, given this recurring need of companies, the Innovation Academy was launched in 2022, which offers a library of free courses that provide knowledge, tools and experiences to manage, promote and expand businesses.

At Movistar Empresas we understand that connectivity is the key to digitization and, for this reason, we launch solutions that are in line with digital acceleration and are tailor-made to accompany and promote the development of companies. In this sense, the company has been growing strongly in the connectivity service in Argentina, with a year-on-year increase of 58% in fiber contracting.

About Telefónica Hispanoamerica:  

Telefónica is one of the largest telecommunications service providers in Latin America. The company, which operates under the Movistar trademark, offers fixed broadband connectivity services -with FFTH solutions- and mobile with 4G and 5G networks (the latter only in Chile), as well as a wide range of digital services for more than 110 million residential and business customers in the region. Telefónica Hispam offers its services in: Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, Chile and Argentina.