An event to analyze how the funds should be managed so that they contribute to the real transformation and improvement of European competitiveness.
The Forum was also attended by Pedro Azpiazu, Minister of Economy and Finance of the Basque Government; Eduardo Zubiaurre, president of Confebask; Begoña Cristeto, partner in charge of the Automotive, Industry and Chemical area of KPMG in Spain and Emiliano López Atxurra, president of Petronor.
For Mikel Barandiaran it is important that these funds serve for the recovery of sectors that, due to their dependence on mobility or demand, have been the most affected by the health crisis. "We have to bear in mind that this crisis has been uneven and these funds must be generous with those who have suffered the most from the effects of the pandemic," he assured.
He also stressed that this must be compatible with dedicating most of the funds to accelerate the total transformation that companies need to carry out, especially in the main sectors of the economy such as the automotive, which is facing the arrival of the electric car, or the energy industry, with the decarbonisation and sustainability objectives promoted from the EU.
The Covid crisis has only accelerated the complex situation that we were already facing. The funds should not serve to invent anything new, but to accelerate our strategic plans and maintain our levels of competitiveness.
Mikel Barandiaran
| CEO of DOMINION
To carry out this transformation, Mikel Barandiaran has also mentioned the need to manage the velocity of change: “Everything is changing faster than ever and we need to be more agile". Although the total transformation of some sectors may take years, for the CEO of DOMINION, throughout this transition many business opportunities arise if we know how to introduce the necessary innovations.
Despite the fact that many companies claim to have accelerated their digitization with the arrival of the pandemic, for Barandiaran: “We have applied the easiest digital improvements such as the implementation of video calls or new communication systems, but not a real transformation to improve industry efficiency or business processes”.
On this point, he also wanted to highlight the differences between technology and digitization. For Barandiaran until now, companies have been very inefficient in the implementation of technology since many times they sought to apply the most sophisticated option instead of the most efficient for their business. “Technology is just a tool. The most important thing is having the knowledge to be able to change a whole process and involve our team”.
