Tech start-up executives highlight Spain's embrace of the sharing economy during a session at ESADE

Spain has the world’s second-highest rate of smartphone ownership. In fact, as Jaime Rodríguez de Santiago-Concha, country manager for Spain and Portugal at BlaBlaCar, noted during a panel discussion today at ESADE Madrid, “Apps for sharing-economy-based services are as popular in Spain as they are in countries like Germany, France and the United Kingdom.” The other speakers on the panel were Gerard Olivé, founder and president of BeRepublic and BeAgency and co-founder and co-president of Antai Venture Builder, and Óscar Pierre, founder and CEO of Glovo.
 
Technological disruption is challenging traditional sectors, transforming the value chain in the business world, and forcing companies to adopt new business strategies. What’s more, this disruption has unfolded during a global economic crisis, which many people believe has triggered new forms of collaborative consumption, including some facilitated by new technologies.
 

A context with new opportunities
 
Mr. Rodríguez de Santiago commented: “I don’t think the crisis has directly catalysed the digital transformation, but it has opened up new opportunities.” Mr. Olivé added: “Most importantly, the crisis has changed the behaviour and needs of buyers and users.” Mr. Pierre observed: “Our companies are not so different from traditional businesses”, noting that the difference lies in “knowing how to respond to needs that arise in this new context with useful products that eventually become essential”. He added: “It’s not just about technology and digitisation. More importantly, it’s about business strategy”.
 
“When a peer-to-peer network scales up, it can satisfy needs that weren’t met previously,” explained Mr. Rodríguez de Santiago. By scaling up, he added, companies also become able to respond to global trends and, in particular, to the growing need to use resources more efficiently “on a planet whose population continues to grow exponentially and whose resources are becoming increasingly scarce”. Mr. Rodríguez de Santiago then noted: “The market is undergoing a shift toward an economic model based less on possession and more on access to products and services.” He added: “We started out by digitising information to make it accessible to everyone, and now we’re somehow also digitising the physical world, even though customers experience our services offline.” Finally, Mr. Rodríguez de Santiago concluded: “We connect dots that otherwise would not be connected, and by doing this we are able to unlock certain parts of the market.”
 

A wave of disruptions
 
Amidst a wave of disruptions – which seem to be coming more and more frequently – tech start-ups compete in a high-risk environment that requires great agility and is characterised by the constant innovation of business models, market-entry strategies and monetisation schemes. “If you don’t move quickly, you die,” declared Mr. Pierre. “It’s cheaper to reach a new user today than to wait until tomorrow.” This pressure makes it necessary to reduce the target audience’s barriers to entry as much as possible. “This often happens because a B2C [business-to-consumer] company is supported by a B2B [business-to-business] business model,” he continued. “Monetisation happens when the service you offer really creates value for users,” explained Mr. Olivé. However, because this depends on various factors, “you basically have to use trial and error,” commented Mr. Rodríguez de Santiago.
 
In an environment where great opportunities coexist with many risks, traditional companies and sectors are being challenged by the constant disruption of start-ups. As a result, friction has been generated both in the market and in the laws that regulate it. “In Spain, we haven’t encountered any major government-imposed barriers, but we have received less support than in other countries. France and Germany, for example, have proposed introducing discounts on toll roads for people who share cars,” explained Mr. Rodríguez de Santiago. “More promotion of innovation is required on the part of institutions, both through stimulus policies and through regulations.” In light of the fact that “the hyper-regulation of traditional sectors has sometimes led to market failures”, Mr. Rodríguez de Santiago also urged the regulators overseeing the sharing economy to “really understand the models that they’re regulating, and to pay attention to the specifics”. Mr. Olivé commented: “In traditional sectors, success is not rewarded as much as mistakes are penalised.” Finally, Mr. Pierre added: “Universities and schools play a key role in transmitting the culture of entrepreneurship to their students.”
 
The session – moderated by the journalist Manel Fuentes – was co-organised by the ESADE Alumni Marketing Club, BeRepublic and BeAgency, and also featured the participation of José Ignacio Ruíz, a member of the Executive Board of the ESADE Alumni Marketing Club.