Building a new future for Greece

Greece has embarked on an ambitious course of economic transformation. Greek entrepreneurship will be called upon to play a leading role in this endeavor. To meet this great challenge, Greek businesses must, first and foremost, learn from past mistakes that led to the economic crisis.

They need to become more extrovert, rid themselves of state protectionism, invest in innovation, and attract and train valuable human capital.

At the same time, however, they must closely follow the seismic changes that are taking place worldwide, driven by the technological revolution, globalization and the demographic changes. This creative transformation of the economy, commonly referred to as “disruption”, creates a new environment, which we need to adapt to, if we want our country to return to sustainable growth rates.

Today, the technology sector globally is growing at a high rate, well above the rest of the economy, generating a large number of well-paid jobs, while also attracting the lion's share of investments.

Greece's performance in this field has so far been disappointing. The country is outranked by the majority of the other European countries in terms of critical indicators, such as digital technology integration, connectivity, and availability of digital public services. At the same time, foreign investors do not include the technology sector among those where Greece can, in their view, attract significant investments.

The Greek State appears to recognize this shortfall and has set the goal of developing the country’s digital infrastructure and bringing key indicators in line with the European average, within the coming years. But the real growth impetus will be given by the private sector. Investing in the technology sector is a key priority. However, all businesses, irrespective of the sector in which they operate, must proceed with their digital transformation, or otherwise risk being confronted with new players that will threaten their position in the market, as the boundaries between the different sectors of the economy are becoming increasingly blurred. This applies to all critical sectors of our economy; from financial services to tourism, and from energy and utilities to agri-food.

As a matter of priority, we need to integrate technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, data analytics, etc., into our day-to-day operations. We also need to increase R&D spending and work much more closely with the country’s educational institutions, which, at the moment, are still largely disconnected from the market and private enterprise. Finally, we must invest in human resources, attracting well-trained professionals, re-skilling the existing workforce and creating conditions for them to grow and prosper in this developing business environment.

Greek businesses have already proven their resilience and adaptability, in the past. Digital transformation is probably the biggest challenge they have ever been called to face.