Sector definition

When talking about the ICT sector, we encounter right away the difficulty of defining what this sector is: What do we understand by ICT? There are several definitions, later on, we will present one.

The Ministry includes as part of the sector everything related to Telecommunications, telecommunications companies, related to mobile phones, landlines, ADSL… etc. Of equipment for telecommunications; IT companies, of information technologies, what we know as informatics; and it also includes, as you can see, contents: multimedia and audiovisuals. Hence, this fits pretty well with the three profiles of the three degrees that we have defined at our university.

Therefore, this is the first depiction of the sector, the one brought about by the Ministry. It is from 2010, and the most important point it makes is about occupation; roughly half a million people are working, we will see their professional profiles later on. Not all of them are ICT engineers, there is a lot of them who are not ICT engineers. And they represent around 10% of the wealth if the country, which is quite a lot.

AETIC is an ICT companies’ association, therefore it is a business association. They also make their own studies, with data gathered from the large number of associated companies. Its results are similar to those of the ministry. Hence, as they both coincide, results are validated and we can accept them as good.

What is said from the OCDE point of view is that the ICT sector comprises any activity that is included or can be included in this list. First of all, I don’t know if you can read it, it says: “Manufacturing of office machinery”. Companies whose activity is focused around manufacturing; in this case of office machinery, mainly of typewriters or any other machine that helps regular office activity.

The second one is manufacturing of computers and other informatics equipment. That is, if what we want to do is to start a company for manufacturing computers you would introduce the code, in this case 3002. Therefore, the first part of the list basically refers to manufacturing: Companies or industries that manufacture any kind of devices.

The second part is about services. The following activities are included within services: Trade, including stores (wholesalers and retailers); computer, peripherals and software wholesalers. So, if you sell to other stores you would be imputing here, but if you have a store open in the street, you would have to look for another activity.

In the telecommunication sectors, there is only a heading saying “telecommunications”. Therefore, you can imagine that this epigraph is too broad. It can include many things, from a mobile phones store, to a telecommunications operator that sells ADSL, going through a company that sells mobile phone apps.

Machinery rental and equipment… and then we have informatics activities including: Consulting about informatics equipment, programs editing. We will see that the list is pretty esoteric; it is hard to find exactly the activity that you want to perform. But, ultimately, that is what it is, it is the official list and you have to choose.

All in all, the ICT sector is very difficult to encase. Why? Because it is a very transversal sector.