One hundred and fifty Ecuadorians are part of the 26,500 employees of the technological unicorn Globanta, which arrived in Ecuador in November 2021 and aims to double the number of jobs in the country by 2023. This digital native company, which was born in Argentina twenty years ago exporting services to the United States and Europe, decided four years ago to transfer all that experience and apply it to companies in Latin America. His offer of digital transformation, business reinvention through innovative technological solutions goes hand in hand with training, and he sees potential and great interest in Ecuador: here they received 600 applications for a call for a thousand scholarships for Latin America. Víctor Valle is the new director of Globant in Ecuador and talks about the plans.

What projects do you have for Ecuador?

We have experience from various parts of the world. Many of our projects are not limited to geography, if I need to have an expert who has done it in Europe do it in Ecuador, I have it with one click. This is how we put together one of the main digital wallets (PeiGo) that was part of our penetration into the Ecuadorian market, bringing our people with experience elsewhere.

We build the product, customers work hand in hand with us and acquire this knowledge and start building internal capacities. In some cases this allows them to operate these products without us, in most cases we gradually accompany them until they can walk independently.

We opened our business in Guayaquil a little over a year ago. We have more than 150 Ecuadorians working for Globant. We recently opened offices in Quito. We have a concept of bringing opportunities closer to talents, not focused on one city. In Argentina, we have offices in more than seven cities. In Colombia we have more than 6,000 employees, in Peru we had 400, and in three years we have tripled our number. With Ecuador, we aim to double our local capacity by 2023, we want to have more than 300 Ecuadorians.

Do Ecuadorians also work on projects for companies from other countries?

Yes, out of 150 people, half working for local projects and the other half for projects outside Ecuador, we have more than a hundred clients we serve in the region. There are people who work for Disney, Google. It is very important, it happened to us in Peru. We have more than 1,500 employees there. We made FIFA for Electronic Arts. You see kids on different monitors over the moon building the game they’ve been playing all their lives.

Traditional careers still apply, although it has been said that the future lies in technology. How to attract young people to study these professions?

We have signed an agreement with the Ministry of Telecommunications to generate technology opportunities, we have more than a thousand scholarships available through our initiative at the regional level so that we can specialize in technology issues. There are more than 600 Ecuadorian talents registered to access these scholarships, we have a good response. There is a huge demand for digital talent in the region, it has increased in the last two years.

How do you see Ecuador in digital transformation?

We see a lot of potential for the talent that he has, there are a lot of opportunities in different industries that we’ve had a chance to talk about. Although it is not immediately apparent, they are already using certain things that we call artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence may seem very futuristic, but we use it, for example, when we go shopping on the street e-commerce. Everything related to means of payment is developing quite well, it will explode even more.

With the pandemic, electronic commerce has developed in the country, but Ecuador would represent less than 2.5% of total commerce on the line of Latin America. Is this small participation also an opportunity for growth?

Yes, I totally agree. There are many opportunities around e-commerce, opportunities in the financial sector, banking, digital transactions at the level of everything that is paid. Now, the percentage of penetration of certain solutions is low or high. I think it depends a lot on each market, and also on the company’s strategy. There are people who want them to physically go to the stores because they handle that concept, they don’t want to say that it is bad or good. There is a lot to grow.

What to say to companies about this transformation, to the consumer who still shy away from digital payments, and to workers who think they might be displaced?

In general, these are trends, sometimes you can’t go against trends. Times vary depending on the maturity of each market or industry, but these are trends. There are opportunities for industries, for consumers, for the workforce itself. Ten years ago there was no career data scientist, now exists and is one of the most sought after and paid, the needs of the market are transforming, but they are not disappearing. We promote artificial intelligence from a complement, you put the platform as a complement with much more operational capacity so that you can delegate it in development, and employee input is in a topic of greater value. Opportunities are changing, you have to be careful because it is getting faster.

Company