Par Márton Fülöp, COO Docler Holding & CIO of The Year 2018

Luxembourg faces an uphill climb on the path to becoming a European IT hub—especially when Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris represent heavyweight alternatives for companies interested in continental operations. That said, this small country has a handful of advantages with which her neighbors simply cannot compete. Close proximity between public sector leaders and private industry means the ministries can move rapidly.

At the international level, the highest company valuations show up around IT companies. What do the most successful IT companies have in common? Their value comes from data. Luxembourg has a strong record in recognizing lucrative macroeconomic trends. Most of us have heard this—first was steel manufacturing, then there was telecommunications, then finance, and more recently space mining. We can expect more emphasis on this quarter century’s most promising commodity: data. 

That is the theory. In practice, Luxembourg’s biggest challenge to digitalization is talent. But this is not new, and it’s not a local challenge. We will need to keep training young people and finding ways to incentivize international talent to come to Luxembourg. After all, there are plenty of digitalization service providers in Luxembourg, but there is not a strong enough community of the people behind the scenes.

In the end, Luxembourg’s ability to capitalize on its tight organizational relationships in a greater effort build a community of strong talent will determine the success. This is our advantage over competitor cities. With the appointment of the new Minister of Digitalization in Luxembourg, we are looking forward to see the emphasis on data and talent.