Ecopetrol achieves first place in the ranking of business innovation by ANDI and Dinero magazine
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Ecopetrol achieves first place in the ranking of business innovation by ANDI and Dinero magazine
Jul 11, 2020
Ecopetrol was at the head of more than 200 companies in Colombia that were evaluated following a methodology of the National Planning Department (DNP). It is the first time that Ecopetrol has achieved this distinction in which it surpassed Grupo Nutresa, Grupo Familia, Cementos Argos, and Coctecmar, among other companies. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the Innovation and Technology strategy that is carried out through the company under the direction of the Ecopetrol’s Innovation and Technology Center (ICP) and the Digital Vice Presidency (VDI).
To achieve this recognition, the National Industrial Association (ANDI) evaluated 3 dimensions on a scale of 1 to 100: Conditions, Capacities, and Results. “Conditions are understood as the factors that must exist within organizations for innovation to be successful; Capabilities are the way in which the company generates and transforms new knowledge to take advantage of opportunities and solve strategic challenges, and Results refer to the materialization of product, process and commercialization innovations in the market ”, Dinero magazine explained in the special edition where the ranking results were published.
Ecopetrol's progress in innovation and technology is easily noticeable. Only in the last eight years, the ICP, one of the main research and technological development centers in Colombia and Latin America, has produced more than 15 technologies to facilitate the production and refining of heavy crude oil, generating benefits for Ecopetrol for the US. $ 950 million. This has also allowed reducing about 662,000 tons of CO2 equivalent, which is equivalent to planting close to 25 million trees. Ecopetrol’s Technology and Innovation center has more than 200 professionals trained at the highest level, 26 of them with doctorates. It also posses a highly specialized technological infrastructure with over 40 experimental areas and more than 2,600 high-tech equipment, several of them exclusive in Colombia and Latin America.
Digital transformation, on the other hand, has not been left behind. Thanks to technologies such as Big Data, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and advanced analytics, a digital evolution plan was designed in different areas of the company.
There is a Digital Agenda made up of at least ten different projects that are driving the implementation of technologies from the fourth industrial revolution. Is expected that several of them can produce benefits to the company of about 397 million dollars, in cumulative Ebitda by 2022.
But the work does not stop here, part of Ecopetrol's responsibility is to strengthen Colombia's digital ecosystem. To achieve it, the company is strongly committed to open innovation through programs such as the Challenge 100x100 or InnóvaTe, in which entrepreneurs of technological origin can propose solutions to various challenges faced by the company through iNNPulsa Colombia, C-Emprende in Bogotá, Ruta N in Medellín and Plug and Play in Silicon Valley, United States.
All in all, the company keeps making progress advances in its objective of being recognized as a digital and innovative-centered business in Colombia and in the world.
