Lack of budget and the fear of undertaking unaffordable financial investments are the main brake on the digital modernization of Spain’s business fabric. In light of this scenario, José David Fernández, a business-model expert executive and new owner of Polaris, announces a paradigm shift for small and medium-sized enterprises: the introduction of software leasing, a solution designed to give small businesses access to proprietary-code technology with the payment facilities of a large corporation.
A Counterintuitive Warning
In the midst of a global AI fever, where it is repeated almost messianically that any business needs to jump onto the tech wave as soon as possible to survive, Fernández delivers a disruptive message: the vast majority of Spanish SMEs are not ready for AI or will not gain any immediate competitive advantage by using it. In some cases, integrating this technology can even mean a financial and organizational burden if done without a clear criterion.
“We are living in a constant environment of technological overproduction that creates anxiety in business owners. SMEs are pushed to abruptly adopt any AI or automation tool that becomes fashionable for fear of falling behind. The result is what I call a ‘technological bulimia’: an operational binge where disconnected solutions are adopted that decapitalizes the business and overwhelms the staff without delivering a single euro of real impact on the profit margin,” explains Fernández.
For the executive, “investing thousands of euros in AI without first professionalizing the company’s leadership or optimizing its processes is a fatal mistake. Digitalizing a process that is already inefficient only speeds up the error, scales it, and costs more money. You don’t need more massive tools; you need your own operational criteria.”
Software Leasing as a Real and Accessible Alternative
Fernández’s acquisition of Polaris — a firm with 30 years of history and €650,000 in annual revenue — marks the end of traditional reactive IT support. The company now becomes the external technology leadership that develops bespoke solutions for each business under a financial-leasing arrangement.
Rather than forcing the SME to make a large upfront outlay for a tailor-made development, Polaris’s leasing model allows the cost to be broken into monthly or annual installments aligned with their financial capacity. During the contract, Polaris delivers software tailored to the company’s value proposition, handling all infrastructure, maintenance, and essential updates in the face of market volatility. Once the agreed period expires, ownership of the software passes to the SME.
“The technology has come to stay and is the nervous system of any organization, but it must be a tailor-made fit. With software leasing, we tell the business owner, ‘stick to your core, get your business moving, and we take care of finding and applying the technology most appropriate for your business,’ enabling the SME to work with tools typically reserved for a large corporation. We only deliver what matters. We don’t bombard you with tech news. We filter and present only what has a real impact on the business and on its numbers,” concludes Fernández.
