Over the past decade, Latino-owned businesses have grown 34% and technology has played a critical role in how they have achieved that growth.
Proof of this, are four entities led by Latinos that have taken advantage of technology to boost their business and have an impact on their communities.
First Onsite works to respond to the community efficiently and quickly
Rene Vargas, a Miami native with Cuban roots, has been at the helm of First Onsite’s southeast Florida division during the turbulent times of 2020. As a cleaning and restoration firm, serving businesses, homeowners and communities during times of emergency, the pandemic highlighted their need to improve their breadth of customer service and responsiveness, while sparking enthusiasm to identify and implement solutions to help expand the business and its reach.
As First Onsite employees switched to a remote work model, customer requests continued and the business was not interrupted thanks to technology. By using Microsoft Teams, employees were able to connect with each other and continue to serve the community.
“Technology has improved our skills and our ability to respond without interrupting the typical rhythm of our daily lives, before the pandemic,” said Vargas.
Technology implementation has also been valuable in streamlining workflows and facilitating project management.
From the chat feature to video conferencing to the Scheduling Assistant that makes meeting coordination easy, Microsoft Teams is used to maximize productivity and better serve the wider community.
Algramo serves communities by facilitating sustainable solutions
In partnership with leading brands and small business owners, Chilean startup Algramo offers a cost-effective and smart dispensing system, providing consumers with a more efficient way to refill and restock a range of household cleaning products and other items. non-perishable. Users can order what they need and pay through an app, refilling their containers from an electric tricycle at their doorstep or from a contactless vending machine in the store.
With operations in Santiago, New York and Jakarta, Algramo’s multi-country presence and expansion model required a platform that would support the various elements of its business model. From the need to increase their data processing capabilities and a reliable tool for transaction management and overall performance, the challenges they faced were complex. They turned to Microsoft technology to migrate their entire digital infrastructure to Microsoft Azure, and now their website, application, platforms, customer engagement processes, and inventory control are all cloud-based.
“We rely on our entire digital infrastructure, dispenser organization and platforms with Microsoft technology, which allows us to reach our customers more effectively and efficiently,” says Algramo CEO José Manuel Moller.
ClearSale Protects the Consumer Community at Higher Risk Times
In this technological age, security is paramount and consumers want to know that their information is protected and secure and that is precisely the goal of ClearSale, a fraud protection organization originally from Brazil and based in Miami, Florida.
Rafael Lourenco, Executive Vice President and Partner at ClearSale, is determined to ensure business continuity and security assurance for his clients.
So ClearSale developed a new data infrastructure leveraging Microsoft Azure. With the migration and use of artificial intelligence, the company was able to reduce the time it takes to run a credit score analysis by 96%. Because the new infrastructure is cloud-based, information categorization became easier.
“Security and transparency have never been more vital to delivering great customer experiences online, and ClearSale is dedicated to helping businesses deliver secure, seamless payment and transaction options that prioritize customer satisfaction.” Lourenco said.
The Centro Legal de la Raza works to provide better legal services
Based in Oakland, California, Centro Legal de la Raza works tirelessly to help those in immigration detention centers, providing them with legal advice and other critical resources. Historically, the case intake model implemented has been solely manual, limiting the ability to process cases and putting additional pressure on staff. As a result, they turned to Microsoft to create a case management platform to ease the process and increase efficiency.
Implementing a case management platform and custom Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, designed to scan paper admission forms and classify standardized data fields in databases remotely for legal service providers, the organization was able to formally activate a pilot program at the Golden State Annex, an immigrant detention center.
The results of the pilot program demonstrate the potential of the technology and the additional benefits it can generate, from an operational point of view, but more importantly, from a humanitarian perspective.
“One of the greatest benefits of technology is that it allows us to work more collaboratively with our internal and external partners to have an even greater impact on the community,” said Mario Martínez, Coordinator of the Post-Launch Accompaniment Program (PRAP). from the Legal Center.
These Latino-led companies have shown how technology solutions have empowered them to succeed and thereby help their communities in ways that were previously unimaginable and are now possible.