At the end of April, Spain and Portugal experienced one of the most severe power outages in European history. About 55 million people were affected and it lasted more than half a day. People were left without trains, traffic lights, ATMs, phone connections and Internet access. It raises the question, is digital dependency an issue for companies? Cahyo Subroto, Founder at MrScraper, kicks off this month’s answers below:
Cahyo Subroto, Founder, MrScraper
In my perspective, yes but not because digital systems are bad. But because too many companies forget that digital infrastructure is still physical at its core.
I’m founder of an AI-powered data extraction platform that operates across multiple cloud providers and serves clients who depend on 24/7 data availability. I work with engineering teams every day to make systems faster, smarter and more scalable, but also more resilient, because the truth is that no system is immune to failure.
For me, digital dependency becomes a liability when businesses treat cloud platforms, APIs and AI systems as infallible. People often assume that cloud-based means always available. But as the recent power outage in Spain and Portugal reminded us, every digital system is still rooted in physical infrastructure. Cables go down. Power grids fail. DNS services break. And when they do, businesses that have built their entire operations on the assumption of uninterrupted connectivity are the ones that suffer the most – not because digital systems failed, but because their planning never accounted for the possibility that they could.
So yes, digital dependency is a concern, but only when it is blindly taken. The solution isn’t to avoid digital tools. But to architect systems with awareness of their limits. That means planning for failure, using multi-region and multi-provider set-ups, building offline contingencies where possible and identifying the single points of failure in your process before they find you.
At MrScraper, we designed our infrastructure with the assumption that outages will happen. We distribute traffic across cloud providers, we cache critical jobs in-memory during slowdowns and we give users fallback modes when certain systems aren’t responding.
That kind of design work takes time, and it isn’t always visible to the end-user, but when something breaks upstream, and your product still works, that’s when it shows its value.
In my opinion, digital systems are powerful because they allow speed, scale and automation, but they only stay powerful if leaders remember that trust without redundancy is just risk in disguise.
For me, being digitally dependent isn’t the issue. Being digitally unprepared is.
Arthur Azizov, Founder and Investor, B2 Ventures
Absolutely. Today, there is an increased digital adoption, but I see it as an unchecked dependency that starts to look more like an addiction. Even the surge from 26% to 41% of companies digitising most operations in a year reflects a real saturation. And the thing is that, like any saturation point, it comes with diminishing returns and escalating risks.
Digital dependency becomes a problem when tech is adopted reflexively, not strategically. So, we see an overload in IT environments, bloated tech stacks and fragile systems that can be easily collapsed under pressure. The CrowdStrike failure evidenced this. Using too much tech is ok, but it’s way better to do it with due diligence, integration discipline and clear purposes.
Plus, there is a cultural issue. We don’t ask, “How can tech solve this business problem?” anymore. We are likely to ask: “How can we adopt the latest tech first?” Such a mindset creates situations where AI is integrated for its own sake, where systems pile up with little governance and where redundancy is disguised under ‘innovation’.
If yes, why is this and what can be done?
I think the root is a misalignment between operational discipline and digital ambition. Tech decisions are made in very narrow circles, budgets follow trends not results, and vendor-driven adoption outruns internal strategy. Companies just lose visibility of what they’ve adopted and why they’ve done it.
The way out here is to strive to become gatekeepers of digital innovation, not just enablers. This means a full audit of the tech stack, finding redundancies and getting rid of tools no longer delivering ROI. Also, structured ‘runways’ for any new tool can be established (with clear go/no checkpoints).
Thinking of moving from quantity to quality can also help to handle digital dependency. So, firms would better prioritise interoperability, business impact and resilience over novelty.
Isaac Bullen, Founder & Marketing Director, 3WH.com
Absolutely. Today, there is an increased digital adoption, but I see it as an unchecked dependency that starts to look more like an addiction. Even the surge from 26% to 41% of companies digitising most operations in a year reflects a real saturation. And the thing is that, like any saturation point, it comes with diminishing returns and escalating risks.
Digital dependency becomes a problem when tech is adopted reflexively, not strategically. So, we see an overload in IT environments, bloated tech stacks and fragile systems that can be easily collapsed under pressure. The CrowdStrike failure evidenced this. Using too much tech is ok, but it’s way better to do it with due diligence, integration discipline and clear purposes.
Plus, there is a cultural issue. We don’t ask, “How can tech solve this business problem?” anymore. We are likely to ask: “How can we adopt the latest tech first?” Such a mindset creates situations where AI is integrated for its own sake, where systems pile up with little governance, and where redundancy is disguised under ‘innovation’.
If yes, why is this and what can be done?
I think the root is a misalignment between operational discipline and digital ambition. Tech decisions are made in very narrow circles, budgets follow trends not results, and vendor-driven adoption outruns internal strategy. Companies just lose visibility of what they’ve adopted and why they’ve done it.
The way out here is to strive to become gatekeepers of digital innovation, not just enablers. This means a full audit of the tech stack, finding redundancies and getting rid of tools no longer delivering ROI. Also, structured ‘runways’ for any new tool can be established (with clear go/no checkpoints).
Thinking of moving from quantity to quality can also help to handle digital dependency. So, firms would better prioritise interoperability, business impact and resilience over novelty.
Mary Sahagun, Founder & Communications Strategist, TargetLink
For me, the question isn’t whether digital dependency is an issue – it’s whether companies have built their dependency with intention or blind faith. I’ve worked in both highly regulated technical environments and fast-paced digital ecosystems, and I’ve personally seen how quickly ‘efficiency’ becomes a liability when the system we depend on becomes unavailable.
I believe that the recent outages in Spain and Portugal were a wake-up call. Not because we didn’t know digital disruption was possible, but because so few organisations had real, functioning contingency plans. Digital dependency becomes dangerous when systems aren’t built for interruption. It’s not the tools themselves; rather, it’s the lack of friction-testing, decentralisation or analogue backups that puts business continuity at risk.
In my work with founders and communications teams, I’ve noticed a pattern: the more seamless the tech, the less people know what to do when it breaks. And when it breaks publicly – say, during a launch, investor meeting or crisis – the cost isn’t just operational. It’s reputational.
But I wouldn’t argue against digital reliance entirely. Digital systems are powerful precisely because they allow scale, consistency and data flow we could never achieve manually. The issue lies in how companies depend on them. Do they know where the vulnerabilities are? Have they trained teams to respond without the dashboard, the cloud, the automation?
The smartest companies I’ve worked with aren’t trying to eliminate dependency – they’re designing around it. They’re asking: what happens when this platform fails? Who do we become when Slack is down? Can we still serve customers if our automation freezes? These aren’t technical questions. They’re leadership questions.
So, in my opinion, yes, digital dependency is an issue – but only if we keep pretending it isn’t. The real advantage comes from companies that understand the difference between being empowered by digital systems and being helpless without them.
