IE Foundation, J.P. Morgan, The City Council of Madrid, and Orange join forces again
In July 2021, IE Foundation, J.P. Morgan, the City Council of Madrid, and Orange joined forces again to promote digitalization for small businesses in Madrid.
The new third edition of “Digital Transformation for Inclusive Business Development” will give 200 Madrid-based businesses the opportunity to build their digital strategy through training and personalized support during the economic downturn brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
About the Initiative
Since 2017, the Center for Social Innovation & Sustainability at IE University and the IE Foundation have developed the Digital Transformation for Inclusive Business Development Project in Madrid. The project acknowledges that there is a gap in our current tech-savvy society, with many small or “micro” businesses excluded from the opportunities available to tech-focused entrepreneurs in the startup ecosystem. To close this gap, the project focuses on leveraging existing e-commerce and online marketing tools for these micro-businesses. This gap has expanded even more due to the socioeconomic crisis produced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Delivered in a remote format, the project built the financial resilience of the beneficiaries parallel to accelerate their ability to generate additional revenues by leveraging online channels.
In the short term, beneficiaries are engaging in crisis financial planning, learning how to access public support, and revisiting their business models to adapt them to the new context. In the medium term, the online channels and newly acquired capabilities aim to prevent them from losing the revenue from their sales and the combination of financial/business resilience content and online capabilities are designed to make them stronger for the long term.
The Objective
The objective of the project is to provide free support to small businesses in Madrid in their efforts to manage the impact of this crisis in the short, medium, and long term. The project also focuses its efforts on the most vulnerable neighborhoods of the city of Madrid. In addition, we gave preference to small business owners in Distrito Centro, especially affected by the COVID crisis (so much so that Madrid City Council has had to implement specific support schemes for them), those in Mercados de Madrid, and in especially distressed sectors such as restaurants
Measuring Impact
This initiative combines fieldwork with academic research to assess the impact on the selected small business owners before learnings from the projects are consolidated. The assessments consider both the quantitative and qualitative impact. Qualitative assessment consists of individual case studies on each of the beneficiaries.
As well as showing an increase in sales figures, beneficiaries in the treatment group show greater confidence in their stores’ potential to generate revenue in the future. The knowledge generated was disseminated to other private organizations and public institutions, providing another level of support to small business owners.
Results
Based on the results of the I and II Edition of the Project, the project team elaborated two research reports for anyone interested in learning more about this topic. You can find all the information for free through these links: First Research Report and Second Research Report
This initiative is led by our center IE Center for Social Innovation and Sustainability. For more information, please click here.