2020 is projected as a challenging year. The opportunity lies in the consolidation and improvement of technologies that support remote work, agile developments and accompaniment towards digital transformation.

He participated in the implementation of core mobile telephony systems in Chile, Brazil and Argentina in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, he founded with two other partners Tecnova Soluciones Informáticas, a company that in its 19 years has stood out for leading innovative IT projects. An example of this was the design and construction of the transactional system to top up money on Entel’s prepaid cell phones.

In his nearly 24 years of experience, Alex Lagos has spearheaded hundreds of IT projects and services for telecommunications, retail, banking and government.

With a strong focus on user experience, Alex today highlights a concept that is on everyone’s lips: Digital Transformation. This was due to the enactment of the State’s Digital Transformation Act on November 11. “The law focuses on citizens and how quality of care is improved, creating a more modern and efficient state at the service of people,” says Chiletec’s vice president a few years ago.

The trends of 2019

Trends in technology of the last time are dominated by 3 concepts: Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and IoT. However, in the opinion of Alex Lagos, it should not be taken lightly. “Companies learn about these trends, but they don’t know where to start and what strategy to use, and they often follow the trend without assessing the real impact on the business,” says the Engineer from the University of Chile.

In his experience, the trend in software development “no longer goes through large budgets of large projects, but about adopting agile methodologies, having products/services that can be used as soon as possible. That’s what customers are asking for,” Alex says. In the old fashion way, delivering a project took years. “Today, companies require more speed for time, investment and market demands, the scenario is characterized an intense competition. Profit margins are getting narrower, and competitors come from everywhere: China, USA, Latin America,” he says.

With the agile strategy,” says Lagos, it takes a strong need for a strong involvement from the company’s senior management to its specific business areas. Thus, “every two, three weeks, progress is evaluated, and results are measured. User needs are prioritized.” Given this, it is important to consider that adopting a methodology is a paradigm shift. To do this, according to the CEO of Tecnova, “change management is required in the internal teams of the companies”.

Projections for 2020: Crisis and Digital Transformation

For the founder of Tecnova, the social crisis in Chile has been one more reason to encourage telework. “Many companies have begun to visualize the benefits of remote work without diminishing their productivity, along with a good quality of life for their employees,” Lagos said. At this point, “in companies like Tecnova we support the empowerment of remote channels, which involves having robust solutions, considering the user experience in our solutions”.

Related to the above statement, Digital Transformation is critical as a lever to improve processes and lower costs. Which implies a cultural change. In that sense, the executive motivates us to go beyond the concept. “You have to worry about people, about the positions, about the abilities. How do I take care of the transformation of people to support this process?”

The CEO of Tecnova projects that “the challenges of IT providers, is to accompany our customers in their cultural change to use the best technologies that exist in the market, with the aim of making their business more competitive and putting their customers at the center”.

According to the IDC, the growth in ICT by 2020 in Chile is 7.5%, concentrated in technologies such as Cloud, Big Data/Analytics, Mobility and Social Enterprise. In this scenario, “Tecnova’s purpose is to take a collaborative role to get its customers the best results in the digital transformation process,” concluded Alex Lagos.