Digitization of industries and artificial intelligence were the focus of the second day of the Sustainable Digital Transformation Conference.

Montevideo, November 8, 2023. 

A new session of Sofis Solutions’ Sustainable Digital Transformation Conference was held with several key themes: sustainability, industry digitalization, and artificial intelligence.

The day began with an interview by journalist Leonardo Melchiori with Tata’s Marketing Manager, Ximena Quintas, who spoke about the partnerships being carried out in the retail industry in pursuit of sustainability, and also about the use of digital tools to drive improvements in user experiences.

Quintas thanked the opportunity and stated that talking about sustainability issues implies a great responsibility for industries, especially the textile sector, which impacts the environment through its production processes. For this reason, Tata has sought to partner with organizations that have an impact on sustainability issues, she said.

Technology in the industry

Technology is a fundamental part of many partnerships between organizations, highlighted Quintas, who explained that Tata has invested heavily in technology, for example in special systems to perform a scan and thus carry out a warehouse inventory in one minute. “The business is measured from end to end,” she said.

The digitalization of tools and processes impacts different business units, and also their sustainability. She mentioned that there are various digital tools that promote environmental care, such as virtual fitting rooms. These allow customers to determine clothing size before making purchases on e-commerce platforms, thus avoiding returns. This reduces product transportation and therefore vehicle movement and emissions.

Industry 4.0 and its contributions

In a second part of the conference, Andrés Croce, Technical Lead, spoke about the contributions of Industry 4.0 to sustainability and emphasized how the digitalization of documents and processes in organizations and companies helps reduce waste and thus contributes to environmental care.

Croce highlighted that industries have incorporated “a lot of technological advances” since the world began discussing how to improve production processes with technology. Being able to visualize how technology can improve and make production processes more efficient is something very positive and presents great opportunities for companies, as it allows them to make better decisions, he said, highlighting, like Quintas, the example of virtual fitting rooms.

“New industries need digital transformation,” he stated, and explained that when speaking about sustainability and digitalization, the key elements considered are: energy efficiency, sustainable production, efficient logistics, circular economy, waste and pollution reduction, and natural resource savings.

In that context, being able to interact with artificial intelligence to improve user experiences and productivity is fundamental, he indicated. 

“In digital transformation there are opportunities, and interrelation is the key to success,” he said, recommending to start thinking about how systems, ways of thinking, and processes can be brought into industries to improve production processes and value chains, and thus help industries contribute to sustainability, while also providing benefits for society.

Promoting anti-corruption

Finally, in a third block, Laura Viré, Integrated Management Systems Coordinator, and Rodrigo Pagliaro, Compliance Officer, also mentioned artificial intelligence, in a presentation where they detailed how technology can be used to prevent and avoid bribery and corruption.

The widespread adoption of technologies such as artificial intelligence or blockchain allows them to be used to combat problems such as bribery and corruption in organizations and governments, they emphasized. In the public sector, the highest commitment must exist, Pagliaro indicated.

They shared several examples of tools that provide solutions in this regard, such as the Océano Platform in Colombia, which makes it possible to detect the concentration of people hired by the State and thus control public spending, or the Red Flag platform in Hungary, which allows consulting the electronic procurement journal.

Viré explained that there are new risks associated with corruption arising from increased contracting of technologies and allocation of resources for the digital transformation of organizations.

According to her, having high-quality data, reducing the digital divide, and having stronger regulations at the governmental level are some of the current challenges.

Sofis Solutions is committed to transparency and anti-corruption, which is why it implements the Anti-Bribery Management System, and has also led projects related to this issue, she assured. Some mentioned were Easy Budget, a platform of Uruguay’s Ministry of Economy and Finance where changes to the Budget and Accountability Laws can be seen; the Accountability platform in Honduras; and OFIT (Strong, Integral and Transparent Organizations), a digital tool for Ecuador that allows systematizing work and making a diagnosis of organizations in terms of accountability and integrity mechanisms.