TECHNOLOGY UPRISING

The 2020s will be a decade of transition for businesses, not least in terms of technology and business model. A new initiative under the name Ecuador 2030 sets out to address this challenge while raising awareness about sustainability.

THE WIND OF CHANGE THAT SWEPT ECUADOR IN 2017 and put an end to the previous administration’s decade-long socialist-populist policies is changing the business landscape in Ecuador, particularly by empowering the nation’s private sector.

Despite serious problems still weighing down the private sector, the fact remains that large businesses and SMEs, especially those involved in major industries such as agrifood and textile, can now function with more autonomy. Simultaneously, with changes in the economic landscape, the business world is approaching a transitional phase. The use of AI in different industries, digitalization of processes, and massive “uberization” of services, among other revolutionary changes, are bringing a new dawn, sometimes referred to as Industry 4.0.

To make up for lost time and bring Ecuador’s business ecosystem up to date with the requirements of this new age, the Ecuadorian Business Committee and the Federation of Chambers of Industry of Ecuador, together with notable members of the business community, launched the Ecuador 2030 initiative in December 2017.

The initiative hopes to prepare the nation’s small and large businesses for the dawn of Industry 4.0 through engagement in a single nationwide project. To adjust the project to the realities of the present business ecosystem, initially a survey with over 800 companies of various sizes was carried out across the country, presenting the designers of Ecuador 2030 with a realistic picture to be used as a baseline.

There is no doubt that after a few years of stalling, the nation’s businesses need to be technologically supercharged to catch up with the rest of the world, and therefore, empowering business with the right technological tools to survive after the fourth industrial revolution is the primary objective of Ecuador 2030. No less importantly, however, the initiative aims to raise awareness about the importance of adopting disruptive business models that lend themselves to the current business market. Ecuador 2030 makes a very simple but important point: those business models that worked well in countries with conditions similar to those present in Ecuador now will not necessarily yield good results today.

As Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously observed, one simply cannot step in the same river twice. In order to prosper in the 2020s, Ecuadorian businesses need to come up with business models that have never existed before, as we are about to enter an age qualitatively different from anything the humanity has experienced thus far.

As its third and final objective, Ecuador 2030 encourages companies to adopt an appropriate set of sustainability criteria in this changing landscape, as an economic leap should never be achieved at the cost of sacrificing the society, the environment, or the wellbeing of individuals.

For all that to happen, however, a new generation of entrepreneurs with worthy business ideas should join the ranks of the nation’s private sector, giving it new blood. Ecuador 2030 is facilitating this by offering a package of incentives to those with entrepreneurial ambitions, including mentorship and a road map leading to growth.

This roadmap will help businesses from different sectors accelerate their growth and optimize their operations over the next decade by proposing several courses of action and reforms. Before receiving their tailor-made action plan, however, the participating companies will go through the stages of diagnosis, inspiration, projection, and challenge identification, which will last four to six weeks. In November 2019, projection sessions were held in Guayaquil, Cuenca, and Quito, attracting attendees from the public and private sectors as well as academia.