His origins
His interest in science and technology led him to invent and patent the first steam engine to ventilate galleries and greatly improve mining productivity and safety. All this a century before James Watt (1769) patented his steam engine to revolutionise the transport and mobility of people and goods, a fundamental lever of the first industrial revolution.
Technological developments such as these boosted the productivity of companies and increased the export and import of products and services.
What is productivity?
Productivity is nothing more than an economic measure that relates the products obtained and the resources used to obtain them. Without it, the performance and competitiveness of a company or economy cannot be understood.
To measure it, labour productivity, which relates total output to the number of employees, productivity per hour worked, which relates total output per hours worked, and total factor productivity (TFP), which relates total output by the weighted sum of all factors, including labour, capital, any input and of course technology. This is the most comprehensive measure and reflects the total efficiency of all resources used.
Relationship between productivity and digitalisation
When implementing business processes and considering their digitisation, it is important to review the capabilities they can bring and how they will improve productivity.
Digitisation is more than just investing in new technologies and implementing them in some of the business processes. According to official data from the Ministry of Digital Transformation, 50% of SMEs have a basic level of digital intensity and 26.9% have a very basic level.
Investments in digitalisation pivot on capabilities in three verticals:
- Data. Its use, storage, processing and analysis.
- Connectivity: For both voice and data use.
- Tools and processes: Rethinking the needs of the company with new tools and processes that take into account the two previous points.
Without neglecting something basic, such as education and training, which allow the correct use of new technologies according to each profile.
Digitalisation is the step prior to digital transformation. The relationship between digitalisation and productivity has been studied exhaustively. In an article published in Small Business Economics, researchers Dolores Añón Higón and Daniel Bonvin from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Valencia analyse the direct relationship between the digitalisation of SMEs and export and import activities. They use the use of information and communication technologies to develop a digitisation index that is directly related to international business activities, confirming that digitisation is a lever of productivity. In terms of sectoral and time differences they conclude that the effects of digitisation vary by sector of activity and time period. SMEs in high-tech sectors and those that adopted digitisation at earlier stages show higher gains in terms of trade participation.
Policy development
The study cited above recommends policy making that takes into account the following:
- Supporting digital transformation by encouraging digitisation of SMEs with subsidies, training and access to digital infrastructure.
- Using digitalisation to increase productivity through R&D, improved labour skills, process optimisation and thus logical time management and prioritisation.
- International Trade Facilitation: Simplifying customs procedures and providing information and support to SMEs so that they can better operate in international markets.
A good example of the development of these policies is the digital transformation programme of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan or the Digital Agenda 2026.
Conclusions
History has examples of how capabilities such as the steam engine, invented and patented for the first time by a Spaniard in 1606, were adapted and improved by others such as James Watt a century and a half later, leading to the first industrial revolution.
The use of certain capabilities such as those offered by digitalisation to carry out a digital transformation of companies has its value when related to improvements in indicators such as productivity.
Digitalisation can reduce barriers to entry to international trade for SMEs. The adoption of digital technologies allows companies to access new markets, improve operational efficiency and respond more quickly to global market demands by improving the productivity of the economy and enterprises.
When we talk about digitisation and the digital transformation of companies, it is necessary to take into account how technology companies such as Telefónica adapt their products and services to both SMEs and large companies, and it is very enriching and valuable to learn from successful cases of implementation.
