Interview with Nacho Juanes, Corporate IT Manager of Dacsa

Position and company: Corporate IT Manager of Dacsa Group
Date of birth: 1/2/1968
Sports practiced: running, cycling, hiking
Hobbies: urban garden crops at home, photography, music
Studies: Bachelor of Computer Science
People in charge: 5
Seniority in the company: 15 years

Interview with Nacho Juanes, Corporate IT Manager of Dacsa Group

What is the main part of Dacsa Group’s IT budget dedicated to?

ERP (SaaS), external Datacenter, outsourced personnel and Cybersecurity

In which area is the most being invested this year?

Deployment of the new ERP, new CRM and SGA and issues of Data Governance and Industry 4.0

Which project are you most satisfied with?

The start of the new ERP in Dacsa Group in May 2021. The support of the Management and the company’s property, the work team (BPO and KU), the consultant and especially the fantastic team that I have in IT , have made it possible for one of the most important projects of my professional career to be a success.

If all the benefits of the company were put in charge of the IT department, what would you like to implement?

I would work on the data to convert it into information, and then into intelligence. He would invest in artificial intelligence, vision systems, robotization, automation, etc.

Is security an issue?

Lack of cybersecurity awareness is a problem. The lack of means to try to make things difficult for the bad guys is a problem. Thinking that we are not a target for cybercriminals is a problem.

A cybersecurity incident can be much more than a problem.

What challenges does a sector like yours have?

Crowd and more every year: To list a few:

• The data: The government, the quality, the securization, the unique data, and in general the valorization of the data.
• Industry 4.0: sensorization, automation, artificial vision, augmented reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc.
• Work in mobility
• Etc.
• Without forgetting Cybersecurity, always transversal to any other challenge.

Can you work from home?

You can work from home and sometimes you have to work from home. In my opinion, it should not be a definitive “isolation”, but rather a very profitable and occasional option to offer to workers who may need it at some point.

What main trends do you observe in the ICT world?

Data management, artificial intelligence, robotization, industry 4.0 in general, and always cybersecurity as a transversal axis.

Under no circumstances on your mobile can you miss…

Google Maps, Whatsapp, Spotify, Strava, Office365, Outlook, Social networks (Linkedin, Facebook, etc.), weather apps, Rainalarm, …

What is the tool that really changed your life?

If we consider the Spectrum as a tool, that was the one that really changed my life, fascinated me and made me dedicate myself to this fantastic profession.

I spent my days and nights programming in Basic with my Spectrum, my cassette and my black and white TV. I studied without the need for an exam to pass, simply because I liked it.

That was my first contact with computers and it hooked me in such a way that I could never put it down.

Tired of solving the technological problems of family and friends? What do they usually ask for?

The truth is that they ask less and less. The millennials, the Z, etc. are already here. that have been born with new technologies, added to the fact that systems and equipment are increasingly more intuitive and simple.

What about extracting the value of the data, will it really mean the evolution of companies like yours?

As I mentioned earlier in this same interview, it is something that remains to be discovered, there is a whole world of intelligence and prediction in the data that we already have and in the data that we are going to have. Of course it can mean a very important change in the company.

What is this digital transformation? Slogan or need?

Slogan and need. Since I have dedicated myself to this fantastic profession that is computing, I have dedicated all my working years to digitally transforming the companies I have been lucky enough to work for. It is true that there are more and more powerful tools, but the objective, more or less ambitious, is the same. Whatever his name is.

Is the R+D+i thing an urban legend?

In my opinion it is not, although sometimes technological innovation is confused as an end and not as a means. In fact, technology can and should help this research and development process, but without ideas, without initiatives, without a solution that responds to a real need, there is no innovation, technological or of any kind.

In the cloud or on-premise?

On the cloud. I prefer to let others take care of maintaining servers and operating systems, updating systems and applications, migrating and upgrading non-stop, etc. and dedicate the people I am lucky enough to have to try to add value, to think, to try to improve things, to listen to the business, etc.

Is the lack of security knowledge of customers and employees the main challenge?

It is undoubtedly one of the main security gaps in companies. It is a constant challenge. That is why at Dacsa Group we launch awareness campaigns every year to try to convey to them the importance that each one of the workers has in the “defense” of the company’s systems.

How does technology help to get the best rice?

We apply various technologies such as connected color machines that eliminate those rice grains that do not meet our quality standards, photographs that analyze humidity, granulometry, etc. in real time in the cloud, etc. Packaging is fully automated including robots for certain tasks. Barcodes, PDAs, zero paper in the factory, traceability, systems such as MES, SGA, ERP, etc. They help to have complete and up-to-date information on all our processes. There are different technologies that help us to get the best rice for our demanding customers.

Is the supply chain a problem? How can ICT help to improve its management?

The supply chain must be in constant improvement, since it ranges from the purchase of raw materials to the delivery of the final product to the customer, going through each and every one of the processes and related areas such as logistics, production, marketing, finance, etc.

And ICT, as a cross-cutting area throughout the company, can and should help in its management. Examples such as purchase management, payments, fleet management, production planning, customer relations, sales, etc. they must be digitally transformed in order to constantly optimize them. There is always room for improvement.

Can AI help make a better paella or can only a human do that?

Be careful because here we enter rough terrain. You are talking to a Valencian, and also a cook of great paellas! Valencian paella is an art. AI can paint pictures, but only a genius like Sorolla can generate true art. Paellas are something similar. Cooking a paella can be done by many people, maybe even a system. But cooking a paella, different in nuances each time, improving it Sunday after Sunday, that can only be done by an artist, Valencian of course, and with Dacsa rice!