Snapshot: The digitization of Argentine companies

Argentine companies are halfway to digital transformation, with a score of 5.42 points out of 10, according to the latest report by the productivity and competitiveness observatory of Universidad Caece and the chamber of commerce and services (CAC).

Medium-sized companies are better positioned with a score of 6.58, while smaller ones averaged 4.62 points, according to the report that analyzed the situation as of March. Large firms only managed 5.72.

The digital intensity index considered 13 variables in which each positive response in relation to the use of technology adds one point. 

BNamericas reviews the main results of the study.

INTERNET AND E-COMMERCE

The survey shows that 91% of Argentine companies use some type of fixed internet, while 76% of employees have access to the internet for business purposes.

The largest proportion of companies (33%) have contracted speeds of between 100 and 500Mbps, while 25% have contracted more than 500Mbps, 20% between 30 and 100Mbps and 6% less than 6Mbps, according to the report.

Of the companies surveyed, 61% said they provide their employees with mobile devices for work tasks.

Only 40% of companies indicated having made sales through applications or websites, below the 46% mentioned as of September 2023.

Of those who sold online, 47% did so through their own applications or websites, 43% through Mercado Libre, 34% through Facebook, 16% through Tienda Nube and 8% through other platforms.

The largest number of companies (35%) have revenues from online sales that represent 30-60% of their total, while 32% responded that it is greater than 60% and 19% less than 30%.

Of the respondents, 63% mentioned that more than half of the total turnover from e-commerce in 2023 was concentrated on a single platform, and 87.5% of the companies cited selling to clients in Argentina, 23.6% to other Latin American countries, 9.2% to other Mercosur countries and 14.2% to other countries in the world.

Among the main difficulties in selling abroad, companies mentioned adapting product labeling (40%), high shipping costs (30%), restrictions from commercial partners (23%) and difficulties in resolving complaints (23%).

SYSTEMS AND SERVICES IN THE CLOUD

Of the companies responding, 30% use enterprise resource planning (ERP) while 44% mention using customer relationship management (CRM) to collect customer information for commercial functions and 40% to analyze customer information for marketing purposes.

Forty percent said they use cloud computing services, up one percentage point from September, while 54% use it for file storage, 48% for email and office system packages and 43% have cloud databases and security programs.

Of the respondents, 33% mentioned using the cloud for CRM systems, 29% for finance or accounting applications or programs, 24% to run the company's own software and the same percentage as an application development platform, while 19% use the cloud for ERP.

IOT

On internet of things, 55% of companies said they use it with the most common purpose (49%) being for security.

Next comes customer service (38%), preventive maintenance (28%), logistics management (27%) and energy consumption management (26%), while 11% use it for production processes.

Of respondents, 36% of companies say they use big data tools, up from 28% in September 2023, and 33% do so through SAP, 25% through BigQuery and 22% through Teradata, while 14% use Cloudera and 5% Hadoop.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial intelligence is still incipient, with 34% of companies responding saying they do not use the technology.

Those that do use artificial intelligence do so to analyze texts (13%), generation of written or oral language (10%), automation of workflows (10%) and machine learning for data analysis (10%), among others. 

Of respondents, 40% of companies use artificial intelligence for the marketing and sales area, 38% for customer assistance and 24% for logistics and organization of business administration processes, while 23% use it for ICT security.

CYBERSECURITY

Of the total, 63% of companies are using cybersecurity tools.

Among the forms of protection, 55% use antivirus software, 41% network perimeter firewall, 35% proxy server, 17% endpoint encryption and 16% vulnerability scanner.

Meanwhile, 39% of respondents have at least one employee specialized in cybersecurity, 18% have an external collaborator and 19% have a mix between external and internal.

Of those surveyed, 57% said they have not had a cybersecurity incident in the last year, while 9% mentioned an incident and another 9% more than one incident.