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With reduced mobility and the imposition of efficiency in communication, the pandemic has established an unprecedented technological acceleration, creating platforms and applications to meet this need and further strengthening the new technological frontier, which began to be demarcated before covid-19.

One Accenture research surveyed more than 4,000 executives from different parts of the world to find out how companies are investing and generating value through information technology. As expected, it was found that between 2019 and 2021, the use of frontier technology resources grew. For example, the rate of use of cloud computing resources rose from around 80% to over 95%. The rate of use of big data and analytics tools went from around 85% to 95%.”

However, the main finding was different: for some companies, technological upgrading only guaranteed survival; for others, it guaranteed market repositioning, representing an opportunity for leadership. Among the best-placed leaders and intermediates, three strategies stood out: adopting technology at various stages of the operation, innovating processes and retraining employees.

The result was that companies that were leaders in the use of technology and innovation grew their revenues, on average, five times more than those that were laggards in the use of these resources. The research also shows that this gap has been growing: in the 2019 survey, the leading companies were growing twice as fast as the laggards.

Increasingly, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Machine Learning tools, among other emerging technologies, which are on the verge of being boosted by the arrival of 5G in Brazil., are no longer distant concepts and are now part of companies' strategic vision. And even if it goes unnoticed by consumers, this technological arsenal is increasingly present in their daily lives - for example, through the targeting of ads on the internet.

Understanding the importance of these tools, the Brazilian credit bureau sector has invested heavily in information technology. The work goes beyond the provision of resources: the investments take place in an environment that encourages the development of innovative solutions and professional development, with the recruitment of specialists and investments in the training of data scientists and developers.

In recent years, a major initiative of the bureaus has been the creation of innovation laboratories with the aim of identifying trends, opening up new business fronts and improving the experience of their clients - both consumers and companies. Partnerships and acquisitions are also on the list of actions to keep the sector on track. technological frontier. These initiatives date back to long before the pandemic: in fact, the use of technology is in the DNA of bureaus, which act as information and predictive analysis networks to support decision-making.

Openness to new technologies, knowledge about the credit business and a culture of innovation form the tripod that makes it possible to expand the portfolio of services offered by bureaus and adapt the sector to digitalization. Consultation services via apps, debt renegotiation, fraud prevention and comparison of credit offers are all components of this tripod.

Less visible, but equally important, is the development of analyses of consumption propensity and debt capacity, as well as investments in improving the traditional credit rating (score). The more relevant data, and the more resources to transform it into useful information for decision-making, the greater the ability of the various categories and sizes of creditors to broaden their risk analysis, optimize and expand the supply of credit, and keep defaults under control.

In short, with the aim of contributing to a more solid and efficient credit market, the bureaus put the most advanced information technology resources at the service of democratizing credit. For the sector, technological implementation goes far beyond a survival strategy: combined with a culture of innovation, investment in technology has transformative potential, bringing returns for companies and positive externalities for society.

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By: Elias Sfeir President of ANBC & Member of the Climate Council of the City of São Paulo & Certified Advisor