Micro and small businesses make up 95% of the world's companies.

A team of academics from the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (ITBA) together with specialists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States held a meeting dedicated to presenting technology-based solutions for improving the businesses of micro and small enterprises.

The event, called “MIT LIFT LabResearchFest – South America,” focused on the importance of SMEs as a driving force for the development of societies.

Yael Cervantes, a researcher at MIT, explained to the audience the research project carried out in Buenos Aires to understand the challenge of micro and small businesses, where she commented on why some countries are rich and others are not: "Micro-enterprises represent 95% of companies in the world . If we support them to grow, contributing to the economic growth of countries, it is a great solution," she emphasized.

The researcher focused on the issues that SMEs can address "internally" within the company, regardless of the circumstances of each country. "We can identify management issues, technology adoption, and capital allocation as the main challenges," he noted.

Marcelo Elizondo, Director of the Master's Program in Strategic and Technological Management at ITBA, analyzed how SMEs, after years of operating in closed and highly regulated models, now face the challenge of opening up to competition and developing key attributes. Which ones? According to Elizondo, they should "define a clear strategy, innovate constantly, build alliance networks, build a reputation, anticipate changes, and recognize that knowledge is their main resource." He also emphasized that "in a context where competitive advantages are transitory and technology can displace established leadership, SMEs must integrate into collaborative ecosystems, promote profound cultural change, and conceive of the customer not only as a consumer, but as a generator of strategic inputs."

An example of "compulsive" technology adoption was provided by Diego Demarco, director of the Master's in Fintech at ITBA. "Argentina experienced a true fintech revolution, achieving one of the highest levels of integration in the region. The great challenge was to break away from the massive use of cash and informality, and today we see that the range of cash use has significantly reduced . The adoption of financial technology was very rapid because businesses had to adapt to customer demands, and the pandemic further accelerated the demand for new payment methods, breaking closed structures and exclusivity contracts."

For his part, during the panel "Challenges in the Argentine context: Management, Fintech, and AI," the director of the Master's program in Management & Analytics at ITBA, Paolo Donizetti, highlighted: "In Latin America, we are experiencing a very important technological adoption process. Although challenges such as the lack of specialized talent, implementation costs, and the digital divide persist , the opportunities are enormous: SMEs that adopt AI already report increases in productivity and access to advanced tools, in a vibrant ecosystem that not only drives local innovation but also exports talent and solutions to the world."

The conference was organized by ITBA in partnership with the MIT Low Income Firms Transformation (LIFT) Lab. During the conference, eight collaborative research projects between MIT, ITBA, UBA, and local organizations such as the Federation of Commerce and Industry of the City of Buenos Aires (FECOBA) were presented, focusing on improving the survival rates of small businesses through management and technology. These projects also featured 24 research projects by doctoral students and established researchers from different regions of Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Mexico focused on strengthening economic and social development.