José Luis Barceló
Economist and journalist
The Crash of 2007 brought, as one of the most immediate consequences, the internationalization of thousands of companies of the entire world that, trying not to succumb to the crisis, rushed to foreign trade businesses with more or less success. This has resulted, however, in new risks that were not noticed before in controlled markets or with the same currency.
After the crisis of 2007, many companies and manufacturers looked for the exportation of a way out that has allowed them to sell more and pick up fruits from that activity of internationalization. That has had its costs, among them, specializing in new markets, opening to new products and solutions for other countries, and improving the qualification of the employees.
But it has also brought new risks with it, such as exposing the financial situation to challenges and difficulties that interfere with the supplying chain of a company. The delays in payments and the increase of the costs have turned many organizations into real experts in avoiding the problems that foreign trade creates.
Recent and positive news has been that the Chamber of Commerce of Spain has announced that it will dedicate 141 million to small and medium enterprises until the year 2020, focusing that investment on the support to innovation and the internationalization of this type of companies.
The Chamber of Spain declared that 53 million euros will be allocated to help SMEs in the innovation process and 88 million to promote internationalization. Furthermore, the Chamber of Commerce also confirms an item of 327 million for training and entrepreneurship, which is good news for a type of companies that has known how to swim against the current. According to the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Spain, José Luis Bonet, this new scene has the digitalization, internationalization and training as the three axis around which the Spanish economy will revolve to guarantee a “vigorous and sustainable growth” of the Spanish economy “able to create employment with better quality”.
It is also true that we are betting on offering simpler and more agile digital financial solutions for companies. The development of digital platforms, such as that offered by BilliB for the financial management of the supplying chain, has a huge potential to achieve a full financial viability in companies.
Difficulties continue to threaten, but with the support of these financial solutions the journey can be easier and less tough, especially for those situations in which a company has several suppliers with different periods to pay invoices. The increase of the financial and liquidity risk that it means is unacceptable on many occasions, especially when getting big contracts that force to move forward important expenses and it ends up being a risk both for the financial situation -sometimes one has to pay high costs and commissions due to the lack of liquidity-, and liquid assets, which means an important obstacle for the business, a risk one has to anticipate.
25/05/2018. © All rights reserved