SPRI presents the digital transformation of Basque industry and its position in global value chains to the United Nations

Cristina Oyón, in Viena.

Cristina Oyón, Head of Strategic Initiatives at SPRI, has presented the results of the survey on the digital transformation of Basque Industry at the headquarters of the UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organisation) in Vienna

The results of the survey, in which around 500 Basque companies participated, form part of the next edition of the Industrial Development Report, IDR 2020, the emblematic biannual publication issued by the UNIDO, which covers the latest developments and tendencies in the field of industrial development in a global context, focusing each edition on different key aspects of  industrial development.

In this edition, the IDR examines the future of manufacturing production and the impact that new technologies are having on the industrialisation process of developing and industrialised countries. In particular, the report focuses on the advanced digital technologies implicit in the concept of smart manufacturing, such as Advanced Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Internet of Things. These technologies are creating a new paradigm of industrial production and are increasingly eliminating the limits between physical and digital production systems. The Basque Country is not immune to this new paradigm and, for this reason, UNIDO suggested including the experience of Basque Industry 4.0 in its forthcoming report on industrial development, Industrial Development Report, IDR 2020.

One chapter of the report focuses specifically on manufacturing companies worldwide and examines the extent to which these companies are adopting the new technologies, the major challenges they face and the impact of this adoption on their position in global value chains.  For this purpose, UNIDO is collecting data at company level related to progress in the use of new digital technologies in the different countries around the world.

Analysing the results of the survey on the digital transformation of Basque Industry, the adoption of digital technologies in the Basque Country is high, with 92% of the companies surveyed having incorporated at least one of the digital technologies. Furthermore, 80% of them incorporate two of them and 70% of them have incorporated three of these digital technologies.

Over the past three years, cyber  security, social networks and cloud computing are the digital technologies most commonly adopted by Basque companies, with an adoption ratio of 55%, 54% and 48% in comparison with augmented reality,  physical cyber systems and digital twins, whose adoption ratios are less than 10%.

The main impact of the incorporation of these digital technologies by Basque Industry is reflected in an increase in the sale of new smart products/services, greater competitiveness and attraction of new clients.

These results on the digital transformation of Basque Industry have been presented in Vienna at the Group of Experts meeting, which is currently discussing the different chapters  of the report and will be endorsed in the near future with the visit of the Basque Minister for Economic Development and Infrastructure, Arantxa Tapia, to the UNIDO headquarters.