Startups are characterized by being disruptive, innovative, and highly digitized companies. However, large corporations need more time to mature and incorporate these new technologies into their internal operations. For example, more than a decade ago almost all employees had smartphones and social media, but corporations had not yet developed concrete projects to leverage the potential of these devices.
The same is true today with artificial intelligence, since, although most workers use it for small daily tasks, from planning a trip to creating personalized images, large companies are still studying the most efficient and profitable way to incorporate it into their operations. With the aim of trying to reduce the technological gap between startups and large companies, and so that the latter could incorporate the most disruptive tools on the market, in 2015 Jordi Griful decided to found Quantion, an IT consultancy that acts as a bridge between these two types of companies.
He did so thanks to his almost three-decade career at the multinational consultancy Accenture, and accompanied by the network of investors from IESE Business School, of which he was a part. It was thanks to this network of business angels that the consultancy was able to start its journey from its offices in the Catalan capital. Since then, the company has managed to finance itself thanks to the capital of these investors and Quantion's own profitability, which expects to end the year with a turnover of more than 12 million euros.
Also since then the company has worked for large companies such as El Corte Inglés, Grupo Planeta, Aigües de Barcelona or Telepizza, but also for public administrations. They even managed to be a partner technological for the Qatar World Cup. For all these companies, Quantion develops "value-added projects, that is, projects in which technology is used to improve customer service or improve the quality of the services offered," summarizes its founder and CEO, Jordi Griful.
Among these projects is, for example, the creation of the first innovation center of the German airline Lufthansa in Southern Europe, which has decided to locate it in Barcelona. This is the sixth headquarters of the airline's Digital Hangar, focused on finding new solutions for the sector. And they have precisely chosen Quantion to develop this headquarters, managing everything from personnel to the execution of innovation projects created there. Likewise, the company has also been responsible for founding Best+, the digital platform that offers real-time traceability for ships, containers, trains, and trucks for Hutchison Ports Best in the Port of Barcelona.
But airlines or port companies have not been their only clients; in 10 years, they have managed to work for a wide variety of sectors, from retail or food to banking. Among these clients, although 90% have been large companies, the company has not missed the opportunity to work on projects for small startups. "Large companies hardly innovate, and they wait to adapt technologies once they are sufficiently matured by startups, which also find it difficult to make a place for themselves in these large corporations," explains Griful.
For this reason, Griful emphasizes that developing projects for startups is also a way to "share disruptive projects and learnings." Thus, Quantion has led projects such as, for example, for a startup that, within the Hospital Clínic, was able to offer real-time help and guidance to the surgeon in pancreatic cancer operations, thanks not only to artificial intelligence but also to computer vision and the learning obtained from previous interventions.
In this decade since its foundation, and as the company grew, the technologies and projects they have developed have also varied. In its beginnings, focused on accompanying companies in the digital transformation process, they also managed a wide variety of Big Data projects, but now they focus on artificial intelligence as a major growth engine for the coming years. "Just like ten years ago with digital transformation, companies are aware of the potential of AI, but they don't know how to apply it practically to their businesses," acknowledges the CEO.
For this reason, Quantion —which has already applied AI transversally throughout its operations and service portfolio— is developing advanced artificial intelligence solutions, such as generative AI or machine learning. They also help large corporations detect their weak points and how artificial intelligence could help them. "It is essential to detect where and why it is necessary to apply this technology; for example, if you want to improve customer service, optimize worker productivity, or establish new businesses with companies," says Griful. "Only then can realistic expectations and concrete applications be generated," affirms Quantion's CEO.
In his case, Griful trusts that the impact and implementation of artificial intelligence will not only not reduce the number of employees, but they even predict that it will help them create new positions. So much so that among their ambitious growth plans they include "doubling the workforce in two years," Griful points out. A workforce currently made up of 150 workers distributed between the Barcelona offices, its subsidiary in Madrid, and those who telework from different parts of Spain.
A workforce growth that the company, which in 2021 was recognized as the best digitalization company with the 21st Century National Technology Award, projects to accompany its increasingly intense internationalization process. "The pandemic also opened up the possibility of working remotely with clients from anywhere in the world," acknowledges Griful, who points out that Quantion's "big bet" is to attract even more European clients.
Nevertheless, the company expects to continue growing at annual rates exceeding 30% in the next three years. Especially after five years of exponential growth, as in recent years the company has managed to quickly double its turnover, going from 4.5 million in 2019 to more than ten million in the 2024 fiscal year.