The Government prepares the launch of one of the star plans to comply with the digitalization promised to the European Union in the recovery plan, which provides for at least 28% of the aid granted from Brussels to be devoted to this area. The First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, presents this Thursday the so-called Digital Kit, 3,067 million euros that make up the main heading of a total of 4,656 million provided for the digitalization of Spanish SMEs. 98% of the country's companies and more than 50% of employment are framed within these small and medium-sized companies.
The novel system of aid will actually go to the facilitators of the technological solutions that require SMEs: Software Specialists (the hardware would be excluded) that will help these businesses, for example, create their own website, increase their sales Electronic or promote through social networks. Carme Artigas, Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, will also intervene in this presentation on which Pedro Sánchez has already advanced that, in the first call of him, he will enable 500 million for companies between 10 and 49 workers.
SMEs that request these aid from Europe may resort to digital service providers, trainers who will accompany applicants and become part of a catalog available to small and medium-sized companies that require a solution. However, foreign digital giants such as Google or Microsoft are excluded at the time of capturing those aid, as the world has known; To benefit from this impulse, you will have unless you have a national partner that participates in the training and digital tutelage of Spanish SMEs.
As stated in the regulatory bases of the program, which has had access to this means, this first section for aid will be allocated to SMEs from 10 to 49 employees who will be able to opt for bonds worth 12,000 euros each. Since this first section will be released 500 million euros in aid, in total 41,600 companies can benefit.
In any case, the 12,000 euros will not be entered into the accounts of the companies, but they will receive a bonus that can be redeemed to receive training by another company that has previously had to be credited as "scanning agent". Actually, these forming companies will be the ones that will receive the money in exchange for instructing SMEs in digital matters.
"The granting of the aid will materialize through the delivery of a digital bonus to the company, of 12,000 euros. This bonus will be transferred to the corresponding digitizer agent to pay the services provided in a period of up to 24 months," he collects the document from the Bases, 87 pages.
All those who carry at least two operative years may be, which have a social headquarters and operating center in Spain, with high personnel to social security and with a minimum billing of 100,000 euros per year, as long as they are not in the that is called "crisis situation". These companies will receive a first payment when they sign the agreement with SME-in which the scan solutions are agreed in which they are going to form-, and a second disbursement will come when the formation is over.
The Red.es public entity, attached to the Ministry of Economy, will be responsible for managing aid: grant them, resolve them, pay and even deal with sanctions if irregularities occur. It will help the Chamber of Commerce of Spain, which will carry out a control and monitoring of aid.
It is curious that although these aids are to encourage the scanning of SMEs, they can only be requested online and the concession criteria will be in order of arrival.
"The aid will be granted by order of application, applying the non-competitive concurrence regime (...) due to the expected volume of requests to be received by potential beneficiaries and to simplify and streamline the processing of them, the Presentation only by telematic means (...) The presentation of the applications will be carried out through the electronic form provided for this purpose in each call, "is collected in the bases.
Although the procedure seems simple, there are consultants that help SMEs to request them in exchange for a commission, such as Yotramito or Startupgrade or FactoryDea. The employer's own employer, CEOE, has also created a service to help companies opt for European funds calls in exchange for an annual commission.
Since the calls are published, SMEs will have three months to order aid, although the government admits that the term "until exhausting the budgeted credit" will be kept open. They want to avoid repeating situations in which the execution of aid has been very low due to lack of demand.
The digitizer agents will offer a range of courses aimed at implementing or improving electronic commerce, digitizing relationships with customers and suppliers, developing internal processes without papers, implementing the electronic invoice, increase the presence on the Internet, automate processes and improve cybersecurity. Aid can not be used to replace or improve services or systems already used by the company, it is warned in the bases.
In total, the Government will allocate 3,067 million to the Digital Kit, but will be releasing for sections. After this first, for companies from 10 to 49 employees, there will be another for companies from 3 to 9 employees (whose bonuses will amount to 6,000 euros) and another one for firms of less than 2 employees (with bonds of 2,000 euros). Autonomous autonomous will also be able to opt for aid.
In addition to this kit, there are other initiatives such as connectivity bonds (50 million), protection in cybersecurity (42 million), the deployment of an offices network to accelerate digitization (26 million), training to managers (256 million) or digitalization of trade (325 million), among other lines of work, until the aforementioned 4,656 million public investment for the Spanish SMEs of the future.
The European Commission has repeatedly pointed out the lack of digitization of SMEs in Spain, a prejudice to improve productivity and more if possible in a country where companies of this type make up most of the business tissue.
Date Of Update: 24 November 2021, 21:17
