How to merge the physical and the virtual in a sustainable paradigm | Digitization | Technology

The world breathes, smells, tastes, listens and, of course, speaks. He speaks with data that allows us to know how he is in health in multiple areas: the economic, the social, the technological and, obviously, the ecological. Minsait, a digital transformation consultant, has this reality in mind, which she names with a hybrid concept, symbiont: what phygital. That is to say, the conjunction of the intangible spaces, those that inhabit the cloud, with the physical, real world, which provides data to that cloud to revolutionize all the human activities that we can imagine.

The digital experiences an unprecedented impulse. In part, due to the pandemic that, among other things, has triggered teleworking offers (214% in Spain according to an Adecco report) and the adoption of all the digital tools that make it possible. “In these first months of 2022, a significant acceleration can be seen in transformation projects on multiple fronts,” says Sergio Martín, Director of Strategy and Transformation at Minsait.

“Digitalization is entering a next stage of maturity, where it is no longer enough to build digital applications around the legacy transactional heart of organizations; Full digitization requires a profound reconversion of technological architectures that allow massive data to be exploited in real time, enable flexible integration with multiple digital ecosystems and allow new business models to be launched with agility. This will not happen if companies do not already integrate the need to migrate to cloud their cores transactional, and immediately address this type of project. And if they don’t, they are going to see their competitive situation irremediably diminished”, concludes Sergio Martín

Full digitization requires a profound reconversion of technological architectures that allow massive data to be exploited in real time

Sergio Martín, Director of Strategy and Transformation at Minsait

The technological cocktail that feeds the cloud has multiple organs in its anatomy. For example, it phygital is deployed in practice in a range that includes the internet of things, the paradigm of billions of objects connected to the network sending and receiving data, georeferencing, the blockchain and augmented or virtual reality. All of these tools have a beneficial impact on profitability, sustainability and safety in specific industrial processes. From the operation of large infrastructures to the management of assets and production plants, through the optimization of value chains in manufacturing and logistics processes, the development of circular economy models or the improvement of the relationship with consumers and the experience of client.

A benefit for companies and citizens

One aspect that Minsait wants to make clear is that these transformations are not just the preserve of large companies. SMEs can be one of the most benefited sectors by migrating all their processes to the cloud. But it is that the cloud not only benefits companies, but directly to the citizen. The concept of smart city, which blurs the boundaries between the public and private sectors, has as one of its main objectives that citizens have the data and, therefore, the knowledge to exercise their democracy directly in specific aspects of city management. Minsait accumulates more than 120 projects in this sector that will forever transform the management and way of inhabiting urban space.

payment systems

Another fundamental aspect is the flow of money itself, how payments are made. The cloud plays a central role again. Minsait, through his experience with Minsait Payments, which offers service to 50 clients in 15 countries in Latin America and Europe and processes more than 220 million cards worldwide, has detected that it is already possible to speak of the consolidation of alternative digital means of payment, both in Europe and in Latin America . This has had consequences not only for the constant reduction in the use of physical money, but also for the appearance of new players, such as fintechs or the neobanks.

The role of the cloud and digitization is also that of being a fundamental actor in the transformation to a more sustainable economy. There are measurable impacts. Digitization achieves greater optimization in waste management; allows more efficient management of flows and transits for decarbonization; reduces CO2 emissions by up to 75% for surveillance tasks or contributes to the reduction of paper. Teleworking also has a positive impact on the reduction of business trips and trips to the workplace. For this reason, digitization must be seen as a fundamental fulcrum to make new paradigms such as the circular economy and green technologies work. The real world twin that watches over and enhances our physical dimension.