A 3-Pillar Approach to Creating Value Through Tech, Innovation

In recent months, Latin America and Mexico have seen record venture capital investment numbers. During 2021, the startup sector in the region attracted more capital than the 10 previous years combined, according to the Latin America Venture Capital Association (LAVCA).

The financial technology sector has grown in parallel with the overall startup ecosystem in the region. In Mexico, the fintech sector grew 16 percent in 2021, according to Fintech Radar. The sector has become increasingly diversified, offering a wide array of financial tools to cater to the equally diverse needs of the market.

The growth of these sectors has a snowball effect on the growth of the digital economy, which, in turn, affects economic development. It sounds simple enough but realizing the impact that financial technology can have is necessary: every person who is able to sell online and receive digital payments has the opportunity for job creation, business scalability for SMEs and market growth. It goes without saying that the possibility to access digital financial tools is also an enabler for entrepreneurs to achieve their personal and professional goals.

Value Creation

At Conekta, we are acutely aware that the value we have as a company is not exclusively linked to our business results but to the value that we create for our clients and for the people our products serve. In the 10 years since the foundation of the company, we have enabled more than 30,000 SMEs, impacted the creation of over 120,000 jobs and processed more than 140 million online payments.

Measuring the impact of our technology is a roadmap to understanding if we are, in fact, solving real problems for real people. In a market like Mexico — where access to digital and financial tools is unevenly distributed — we must pay special attention to the value we create outside of our company and not just within.

The ability to understand the value we create and the positive impact we have in the communities and markets we serve is also a thermometer to determine if our products meet the standard of inclusivity that is necessary for scalability in our region.

Since we operate in markets where financial and digital infrastructure are unequally distributed, we should consider certain pillars to account for the value we are creating. The first is accessibility: are we truly making it possible for people to use financial services that were previously out of reach, in a simple and seamless way? The second pillar to consider is adaptation: have we incorporated our product into people's lives in a way that disrupts positively? The third pillar for value creation —  integration — is a result of combining the previous two and analyzing if our solutions have become indispensable for increased regular usage.

Why It Matters

Understanding the impact we have and the value we create as innovative technology companies is not just a means for understanding our value as companies but an essential aspect of being accountable for delivering the promise of status quo defiance and transformation that we have set out to accomplish. In this way we can evolve toward a model that considers growth as a measure of how we are able to impact people’s lives beyond the frontier of our own organizations.