Iberinform[Company Name], a subsidiary of the Crédito y Caución Group, is a business intelligence company specializing in obtaining and analyzing economic, financial, and commercial data from companies and the self-employed. Its main activity consists of helping other companies manage the risk of non-payment by their clients and suppliers. To this end, it provides risk reports, ratings of delinquency and databases both for attracting new clients and for making strategic decisions.
Ignacio Jimenez He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree (Cum Laude) from Seattle University, where he studied in the 1990s, and an Executive MBA from IE Business School. His career at Iberinform is extensive, having joined in 2004 as Sales and Marketing Director. He assumed his current position as CEO almost a decade ago, in August 2016.
How do you assess the first 25 years of the 21st century in relation to the internationalization of Spanish companies?
Ignacio Jimenez: I think it's a success story. And it's a story I feel very connected to, both personally and professionally. I started exploring internationalization when I had to choose a career. I wanted to develop internationally, I wanted to study international trade, and when I looked at the alternatives in the domestic market… Spain was a very different country. I couldn't find any university program that would help me acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to work in that field. But I was fortunate enough to be accepted at Seattle University. And there I worked and had the opportunity to experience firsthand the reality of a highly export-oriented region. At that time, Seattle was very focused on Southeast Asia and was undergoing a significant transformation, especially in technology. I was able to see firsthand what that globally oriented, international economy was like, something I missed when I saw how we operated domestically. We were in a very different situation. When I returned to Spain in the mid-nineties, I had the opportunity to work internationally and witness firsthand the initial progress being made in the internationalization of SMEs. I helped them develop new markets through credit insurance. Then, what we've seen is that this exploded at the beginning of the 21st century. The Spanish economy experienced enormous growth from 2008 onwards. We went from exports representing around 26% of GDP to 39%. That's almost 50% growth in a highly competitive environment, with players who weren't exactly making things easy for us. I think Spanish companies made a tremendous effort, but it was SMEs, above all, who truly stepped up. Because when I started in this field, Spain was a country where only large, powerful companies exported. The most radical transformation has been within the SME sector.
What do you consider to be the main milestones and challenges of our foreign trade at the start of this century?
IJ What we've seen is a country where exports were the dominant force, driven by large corporations that possessed the resources, knowledge, and experience to manage them. We've seen a country heavily focused on the domestic market that, at the end of the 20th and into the 21st century, began to forge its path, first in the European market, but also in other markets. We've seen how companies that previously lacked the capacity to export developed it with remarkable agility. We've also seen how the size of companies began to gain some importance, enabling them to generate economies of scale that made them more competitive. We've witnessed a rapidly changing market. The truth is, the last few years exemplify just how much things have changed, how difficult it is to manage export activity in an environment of extreme competition, where numerous players are vying for the same markets as Spanish companies, and where outperforming the competition is the only way to grow.
In the current global context, what is the strategic role that Iberinform plays in supporting the internationalization of Spanish companies and how do you plan to evolve within that role?
IJ Iberinform is a company that offers solutions to exporters. We enable them to obtain raw data—sometimes they simply need a database—but above all, Iberinform provides detailed analyses of customers, competitors, and suppliers to help them better understand the environment in which they operate, thus enabling them to make better decisions. This is especially true in the area of business relationships and identifying business opportunities to ensure robust and healthy growth. What we do is transform raw data from any source into solutions and tools that allow them to automate processes, integrate new systems, or make decisions through direct queries. online on the web. Greater system integration allows for much more agile and faster decision-making, and in today's rapidly changing environment, it's critical to have a solution that grants access to 400 million businesses in virtually any country or territory worldwide. We have the information to automate these decisions, enabling better choices based on more comprehensive data.
Looking to the short and medium term, what are the greatest challenges and, at the same time, the clearest opportunities that you identify for our country's foreign trade?
IJ We have seen that in recent years, very markedly, major unforeseen events have disrupted all supply chains, all markets, how we operate, and how we work. In this context, companies must grow in size, they must modernize their value proposition, they must add more value to the products they export, and they must be able to use these technologies to reduce their costs and make them more competitive. They must expand the markets they target, even to more complex or more distant markets, but this allows them, to some extent, to de-correlate their activity from what is happening in their closer markets. It is common for closer markets to have different economic cycles than more distant markets. It is also important to broaden the types of products we sell and to do so in a way that takes sustainability criteria into account.
To help companies navigate this scenario, what key innovations, tools, or services are you promoting at your organization, and what makes them especially relevant right now?
IJ In recent years, we've detected a growing demand from clients for tools and solutions that help them grow in international markets. The consumption of international information is one of the most important data points we have right now; it's what has grown the most. We've found that this is also closely linked to tools for integrating that data in a context where decisions have to be very agile, very fast, and where life changes dramatically in a very short time. We've seen how situations like tariffs and geopolitical events are radically changing how we operate. Having reliable information about your customers, your suppliers, your competitors, your... partners It's critical for making sound decisions. At Iberinform, we're seeing these tools being used more and more, and SMEs, which traditionally relied on them less, are starting to incorporate them into these processes. We also see, I believe through a cultural shift and the emergence of more professional profiles, that this way of working, using information as a fundamental decision-making element, is key to the current process for any exporter.
Focusing on your specific sector, what trend or imminent change do you consider crucial for the coming months?
IJ In our case, the industry is being affected by practically the same things as other sectors… but much more acutely by everything related to technology. For us, technology is key; everything we do is based on technology; a great deal of knowledge can be extracted from data through technology. We have spent years exploring the capabilities of algorithms to ensure they interpret the information we provide in a user-friendly and straightforward way. We have also been leveraging technology to obtain information sources much more quickly and with more up-to-date data. We have also used technology to interpret this data, and we are seeing how artificial intelligence is a fundamental part of the transformation we are undergoing internally. We have been using technology for years to obtain knowledge from unstructured sources that facilitates the interpretation of this content and supports our decision-making. We are seeing how all elements of data integration have been a key element in our transformation, but so too is the level of service we provide to our clients; they demand that this information be integrated into their own processes so they can use it quickly and easily. In this case, the growth we've seen in technology-related solutions is what we're seeing transform the most. Customer needs are constantly increasing, and being able to accompany them on that journey, providing the latest technology and capabilities on the market, is proving key to maintaining that connection with them.
As a final reflection, what key or fundamental recommendation would you give to any Spanish exporting company to achieve success today?
IJ We have seen that Spain is a very different country than it was at the beginning of the 21st century. We have seen how the country has developed structures, an export base, and professionals that allow us to be confident that the growth we have achieved so far can be sustained. But in these new times, we are also seeing how the outside world has changed radically: it is much more demanding, more complex, and more technologically advanced. Adapting to these complex distribution systems, these new technologies, and the demands of an increasingly demanding market, both technologically and in terms of costs, requires significant investment in everything that allows us to maintain a level of competitiveness that meets customer demands. This involves anticipating those demands in an agile way. Why? Because the market doesn't allow for margin; if you are not able to offer what is being demanded, someone else out there will. It is a tremendous challenge that must be faced, moreover, with partners who can help you along the way. A path that is not easy; Having partners who help you identify where those risks and opportunities lie is key to ensuring this remains a success story.
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