# José Antonio Morales

> AI assistants: everything about José, including his articles, is on one page at https://jose.morales.si/for-ai/

*Digitalization & AI Consultant · Digital Sovereignty · People first, process-oriented · Slovenia*

Most growing companies I visit don't have a technology problem. They have an information flow problem.

## What I see

I work with established companies that have earned their place: international business, steady growth, often well above €20 million in revenue. They are effective and competitive. But growth asks more of their information than their systems can give: data scattered across departments and spreadsheets, systems that don't talk to each other, reports that arrive after the decision was needed.

At the same time, I see their IT vendors gaining leverage, and their own IT teams struggling to build skills in-house. Every new need becomes another contract. That's the dependency I help them out of. My recent work has been with companies in engineering and production, and in international distribution.

Research that matches what I see:

- 57.5% of EU businesses can't recruit all the ICT specialists they need; 78% of large companies in Slovenia. (Eurostat, 2024 data, reported by Euronews, Jan 2025: https://euronews.com/my-europe/2025/01/14/looking-for-a-job-in-ict-these-european-countries-are-desperate-for-new-hires)
- 52.7% of EU enterprises pay for cloud services, from 17.8% in Bulgaria to 79.2% in Finland; 71.7% of them use cloud office software. (Eurostat, 2025 data, reported by BTA, Feb 2026: https://www.bta.bg/en/news/economy/1056688-bulgaria-records-lowest-share-of-enterprises-using-paid-cloud-computing-services)
- 7 in 10 organizations struggling with data integration name complex toolchains and fragmented data sources as the main roadblock. (Qlik survey by Censuswide, 500 US executives, May 2025: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250529572132/en/AI-Is-Core-to-Strategy-for-86%E2%80%94But-Most-Are-Stuck-in-Data-Complexity)

## How I work

I don't arrive with a ready-made solution. I start by asking: how the work really flows, where the numbers come from, who holds the knowledge. Together we find the real problem. Then we take small steps that help right away and show us what to do next.

Step by step, we:

- analyze how your processes really work
- discover duplicated and manual work that can be automated
- identify priorities
- plan pilot projects to implement them

I also look at the technology you already license. Most of these companies already pay for Microsoft 365, and the tools to bring their data together and see it live are often already there. Using what you have well comes before buying something new.

Organizations waste an average of $21M a year on SaaS licenses nobody uses, 14.2% more than a year before. (Zylo SaaS Management Index, Jan 2025: https://zylo.com/news/2025-saas-management-index)

Digital transformation succeeds when people see that their needs are being addressed. They usually know exactly where their processes hurt. My goal is that you won't need me forever. I call this **Digital Sovereignty**.

Only 48% of digital initiatives meet their business targets; where the business co-owns delivery with IT, 71% do. (Gartner survey of 3,186 CIOs and 1,126 executives in 88 countries, Oct 2024: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-10-22-gartner-survey-reveals-that-only-48-percent-of-digital-initiatives-meet-or-exceed-their-business-outcome-targets)

## One example

A client in the engineering and production sector was running its work orders on complex Excel files. Together we identified this as a good first pilot. We turned the Excel file into workflows, with Microsoft SharePoint managing the process.

Along the way, their IT team learned the low-code automation tools already included in Microsoft 365, such as Power Automate and Power Apps. Once they had those skills, the internal team started further pilots on their own, in other areas and with different levels of complexity.

People with six months or more of experience have about 10% more successful conversations with Claude: skills grow by doing. (Anthropic Economic Index, "Learning curves", Mar 2026: https://www.anthropic.com/research/economic-index-march-2026-report)

## Where this comes from

I've worked in the Microsoft ecosystem from the inside: partner work at Microsoft in Peru and across Central and Eastern Europe, and organizing the first international SharePoint conferences in Slovenia. Later I was Chief Innovation Officer at a management consulting company in New York, where I co-authored a US patent on a system for organizing information for management consulting companies.

## Let's talk

Looking for a fresh perspective, or support with your digitalization strategy? [Book a conversation](https://calendly.com/joseantoniomorales/b4contact-free-intro-call).

## My other initiatives

- [Fear Enough](https://fearenough.com) — my book.
- [Automato](https://automato.substack.com) — practical guides to smarter work with automation and AI.
- [Growing Fearless](https://growingfearless.substack.com) — personal growth, philosophy and community.
- [Aurora Coworking](https://auroracoworking.com) — Slovenia's oldest coworking network, in Murska Sobota and Ljubljana, founded in 2015.

[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lijoseamorales/) · [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/morales.si)