DICA: Comprehensive program for the digitalization of retail in Asturias

DICA responded to a context of transformation that particularly affected local retail, a sector struggling to access the support instruments available to larger companies. Its goal was to help these stores reach a level of modernization in line with the demands of competitiveness, understood not only as growth but as the ability to sustain their business and their presence in Asturian neighborhoods and rural areas.

The program kept the financial support measures and complemented them with accompaniment and training, structuring its offering around five elements: funding to access technology and talent, immediate access to advice, guidance for selecting the right digital solutions, ideas to inspire retail differentiation, and coordination among organizations and stakeholders in a single space.

The areas on which DICA was built were:

• Awareness: raising awareness of the need to stand out through service, showcasing success stories, and disseminating relevant information.
• Training: group training activities, online training resources, and individual actions for each store, with an assessment of skills and digital maturity, a personalized action plan, and an accompaniment pathway.
• Innovation: a demonstrator of retail solutions, a trend observatory with outreach events, and support for developing new business models based on proximity and personalized service.

CTIC organized and carried out the actions in the program's three areas, contributing its experience in digital transformation and its capacity for deployment across the territory. Over its three years of implementation, DICA assessed the digital maturity of more than 5,100 Asturian retail businesses and designed digitalization pathways for 1,500 professionals, with the collaboration of merchants' associations across the region. All activities were offered free of charge to retailers.