Interview with Emilio Osete, Co-Founder & CEO of Digiu Digital Group
Check out this interview with our co-founder, Emilio Osete. Originally published in the April edition of AUSAPE’s Magazine, this interview offers insights into Emilio’s background and the founding of Digiu Digital. Read on to learn more about our history, expertise in SAP solutions, and unique position in the market for digital customer experience solutions.
Revista AUSAPE – N° 84 – April 2023
Who is Emilio Osete and how did Digiu Digital come to be?
I studied economics and have spent my entire career in the world of technology consulting – a world that I’m passionate about. In 2019, I founded Digiu with my partner, Willy Möller, as a result of a management buyout of the international practice of FH, a company I was then leading for the EMEA region, which now belongs to the NTT Data group.
Digiu is a specialized technology consultancy that was founded with the purpose of accelerating the digitalization of large companies, bringing to the European and Latin American market a differential expertise in the niche of SAP solutions in the “Customer Experience” area.
How has Digiu’s trajectory been?
I think it can be explained by understanding our beginnings. We landed in Europe, as FH, at the end of 2016 to do the first worldwide project on SAP Hybris/Commerce in the Azure Cloud, which at that time was technologically far behind Amazon AWS. At that time, we were known as “Hybris specialists,” and since then we have multiplied in size and diversified in terms of customer solutions and projects.
We still have a very talented, young, and international team, and probably one of the largest CX solution specialists in Southern Europe, if not the largest. And all without changing our DNA, which is the passion for challenges and complex technological transformations.
What is the market like for these CX solutions?
Unlike ERP and so-called Backoffice solutions, where SAP is predominant, there is a great atomization in the customer areas. With a very important presence of Salesforce – especially in CRM – as well as other manufacturers, including custom solutions in many cases, the reality is that customers do not have a single technology in these areas.
What does a partner like Digiu bring to the traditional SAP partner ecosystem?
Traditional partners have almost their entire business focused around the ERP, with small CX practices that have emerged as a business opportunity. Large consultancies are usually divided by technology.
Our focus is totally differential. We have been exclusively dedicated to digital customer solutions for more than 20 years, which positions us as clear leaders in know-how and experience, having developed more than 500 CX projects. For example, we have been working with Hybris since 2006, long before its acquisition by SAP in 2013, and we have naturally evolved as a company towards an ecosystem where many technologies and manufacturers coexist (Salesforce, Spryker, among others). These customer areas need specialists, and we seek to revolutionize the customer area and its business through digital channels.
SAP's biggest challenge in CX is not its solutions but the 'focus'. The business around the Backoffice with S/4HANA is so big that these areas are often not prioritized. The suite is exceptional.
How do you see SAP’s strategy in these areas?
SAP’s biggest challenge is not its solutions, but its “focus.” The business around the Backoffice with S/4HANA is so large that these areas are not always prioritized.
On the other hand, all manufacturers (not just SAP) have grown in these solutions through acquisitions, creating a very changing discourse.
Speaking specifically of the tool, SAP has a differential end-to-end strategy that, if well leveraged and able to coexist with other solutions, has very important competitive advantages.
So, do you think SAP is on the right track now?
The suite is exceptional. And accepting that SAP in this customer world must learn to coexist with other solutions at times, the potential for brands is enormous. We always tell our clients that they should abstract themselves from the marketing of the manufacturers and look for the best strategies in each case because these tools are designed to create new revenue streams and attract new customers; they are not back-office solutions.
A curiosity, why is your motto in English “Digitalization as Simple as Possible”?
The concept of “digitalization” or “digital transformation” is on everyone’s lips but is often mixed up. “Digitization” means converting analog to digital, and many companies believe that this makes them “digital.” However, “Digitalization” means moving all our processes to digital models, which changes the structure of our profit and loss account.
Digitalization is complex and involves creating channels and tools that mix traditional or offline strategies with digital ones, while simultaneously creating a complete organizational transformation. This is what we call the digital shift, where our revenues become increasingly dependent on digital models and channels.