A Critical Look at the Kit Digital: Promises, Numbers, and Challenges

The Kit Digital was born with a laudable purpose: to reduce the digital divide and boost the competitiveness of SMEs and freelancers in Spain. However, in my personal opinion, this initiative is not fulfilling its purpose. In fact, I dare say it has been a failure as of February 2025.

Origins and Objectives of the Kit Digital

The initiative emerged in 2021 as part of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan. Driven by the Government of Spain through Red.es and financed with Next Generation EU European funds, the program was designed to promote business digitalization in a context of economic and social transformation. The official launch took place in 2022, initially targeting SMEs with 10 to 49 employees and later extending to freelancers and smaller companies.

Impact and Relevant Metrics

The Kit Digital has achieved significant figures in its outreach and adoption:

• Beneficiaries: As of November 2024, aid has been granted to more than 530,000 companies, representing approximately 80% of the target committed to the European Union under the recovery plan (red.es).
• Interest in the last year: Around 2,000 applications have been registered daily, showing growing interest from the business sector. In regions like Soria, it was noted that about 40% of the 3,500 companies that applied for the grant have already received the aid (cadenaser.com).
• Digital Agents: Initially, in March 2022, there was a first catalog of 3,000 digital agents. This number has grown considerably, reaching more than 11,200 entities by December 2024 (portal.mineco.gob.es, cincodias.elpais.com).

Criticisms and Implementation Challenges

Despite the encouraging numbers, there are several aspects that make me think this aid is not being successful:

Mismatch with Real Needs

• Instead of offering personalized responses to each SME, industrialized processes have been chosen that do not consider the particularities of each business. The validation process itself pushes you not to consider more than a few technical initiatives that, in most cases, do not reflect what the SME really needs. It is the agency's job to have the necessary sensitivity to invest time in explaining what is available in the market and how they can take advantage of it.

Bureaucracy and Slow Processes

• The process to access the aid is characterized by notable bureaucratic complexity. The paperwork, typical of an accounting office, has generated significant delays, affecting productivity and causing frustration among SMEs. In my opinion, this undermines one of the main goals of the Kit Digital program, which is to increase business productivity, at least in their digital area.

Price Inflation and Misvaluation

• Let's be realistic: now all websites cost 2,000 euros. This apparent fixed cost hides a truth: the grant is being maximized by providing only the minimum required by the guidelines. This practice distorts the perception of the real value of the service. Many SMEs have processes that, if digitized, cost much more than the grant. And a basic static WordPress template website, sorry, does not cost 2,000 euros. Or at least it didn't in 2021, 2020, or 2019.

Technical Limitations and Lack of Innovation

• The use of WordPress is very widespread, which has a fantastic community, but it stopped being a competitive builder at the technological level some time ago. It is a mediocre tool, and using it for digitalization at a high cost clearly shows a big gap between price and value. For the money of a grant, we should expect a personalized website, without heavy libraries that negatively impact performance. Many of the proposed solutions are based on conventional tools that lack the innovation and performance that could effectively drive the digital transformation of SMEs.

In the End, Europe Pays

• This initiative has political overtones, to be able to say that the small and medium-sized business sector is being transformed, with a significant budget, but delegated to organizations like Red.es that cannot keep up with quality validations. In short, you see many websites with the European cooperation logo that do not represent an improvement for that business.

Conclusions

The Kit Digital, conceived as a response to the urgent need for modernization in the Spanish business sector, faces a double challenge: on one hand, to achieve the ambitious digitalization objectives, and on the other, to overcome the bureaucratic barriers and market practices that have limited its potential.

While the intention to reduce the digital divide is undeniable and the numbers show broad acceptance, it is crucial to rethink some aspects of its execution. Personalization of services, simplification of processes, and a revaluation of the real cost of digital services are necessary for the initiative to not only meet its digitalization goal, but also drive real and sustainable transformation in the sector.