May 29, 2018 
Digital technologies are everywhere around us and we are always keen to learn about new smartphones, 5G or the newest wave of wearables. But how do we implement these technologies in our business in a way that we really accelerate sales and growth from end to end?
This question and many others were answered during the DES2018 in the IFEMA in Madrid. From Tuesday the 22nd of May until Thursday afternoon, many speakers, tech gurus, companies and start-ups have come together to inspire each other.
On the first day of the show, our Polyglot Iot Recruitment Consultant Sophie van Goethem attended the HR summit to get deeper insight in whats about to come.
Starting with a panel discussion led by Joana Sánchez, Executive Chair of Incipy and Inesdi, and participated by José Luis Risco, Human Resources Director of EY Spain, who revealed that Spain is far behind on HR marketing.
“We need to give the word to our employees instead of trying to sell the company in a traditional way”
Mireia Ranera, Digital HR VP of Incipy
Young talent is looking for the newest technologies, working together with a team and doing meaningful work as explained by Iñigo Larrea. Daniel Ruiz Sotillo, Director de Personas y Talento BQ, emphasized that this can only be obtained by creating an agile organization where employees have ownership of the projects.
We also need to understand how we will attract the best talent from universities. Unilever Yolanda Menal , National Human Resources Director, presented us with their strategy. Unilever improved digital applications to become easier and faster for social network invitations. Their only requirement? Be a graduate!
This way Unilever receives significantly more applications than anybody else, who would focus on business profiles only. Having a new way of profile assessment, using gamification, they can select by agility and resilience, which are the soft skills for great leadership.
The next step of the recruitment process is to continue via videos, which are being analysed with AI based on the way of talking, critical words and behavior. In this way the assessment becomes more objective and a lot faster.
Finally, the candidate gets the chance to participate a typical work day at Unilever, talking with employees from different layers in the organization and getting a real taste of the company culture. With this strategy Unilever has increased their number of applications by 334% and their ratio of successful placements by 308%.
The following days more technologies were discussed such as Blockchain, Digital Marketing, Artificial Intelligence, the Cloud and the Internet of Things.
Within this last topic there was also a very interesting panel discussion on Cyber security led by Magnus Melander (CEO of wbird) with Juan Corro (VP strategy and business development at Sayme), Fernando Monzon (CTO of Everis IoT) and David Cristóbal (Pre-sales manager Sigfox)
Here are some more key takeaways of the conference:
– Digital transformation is a constant evolution without end. We will never finish. Rahaf Harfoush (Bestselling Author Of ‘The Decoded Company’ – Strategist & Digital Anthropologist)
– We need to include everyone in our transformation, diversity is essential. Anne Hoyer (Leonardo IoT Solutions Director – SAP)
– Hardware will play an important role in the future, software is not everything. Bay McLaughlin (Co-Founder – Brinc.io)
– Let technology and human skills add up to each other. Maria José Millan (Chief Strategy Officer – Visualfy)
– Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility, don’t wait until there are rules. Fernando monzon (CTO – Everis IoT)
