Even the most digitally advanced companies need to exist in the physical world.

For years we understood digital transformation as a one-way journey: moving from the physical world to the Internet.

Offices would become apps. Stores, e-commerce platforms. Conversations, chats. Procedures, automated processes.

But one only needs to look at some of the most successful digital companies to discover something seemingly contradictory: the more important they become in the digital world, the greater their efforts appear to be to also make themselves visible in the physical world.

This isn't a contradiction. It's a sign of how the relationships between people and brands are evolving.

When a Digital Company Decides to Go Tangible

Nubank was born to transform a traditional industry through an essentially digital experience. However, its growth has been accompanied by a considerable investment in physical spaces.

In Bogotá, the company presented its Nu Colombia office as much more than a workplace: a space to connect people, foster collaboration, strengthen community, and physically represent its culture.

The Investment Continues

In Brazil, Nubank announced an investment of over R$2.5 billion over the next five years to expand its office infrastructure. In São Paulo, it will occupy two new buildings, and its expansion also includes other cities in the region. In Bogotá, the company plans to occupy a new 14,000-square-meter building in 2028 with capacity for more than 1,000 people.

Why does one of the world's largest digital financial platforms need an increasingly important physical presence?

Probably because having a physical presence also communicates.

It communicates permanence. Support. Scale. Culture. Prestige. Closeness.

And, especially in services where people deposit their money, their data, or important life decisions, it contributes to one of the most difficult assets to build digitally: trust.

The physical world didn't disappear. It changed its function.

This phenomenon can be observed beyond financial services.

Mercado Libre is fundamentally a digital platform, but the online shopping experience inevitably connects with a physical infrastructure: logistics centers, deliveries, returns, and points of contact that make visible in the city an operation that began behind a screen.

Netflix offers another interesting example. Its product essentially exists within a screen, but its series and films constantly extend beyond it. Billboards, bus stops, transportation hubs, interventions, and experiences bring its content into the urban space.

We don't need to physically enter Netflix to use it.

However, Netflix needs to occupy part of our physical world to build awareness, conversation, familiarity, and brand recognition.

These are different manifestations of the same phenomenon:

the digital world needs, at certain times, to become tangible.

There is a fundamental reason: trust.

An exclusively digital relationship has enormous advantages:

Speed. Availability. Personalization. Scale. Lower transaction costs.

But the relationships between people and organizations have other dimensions. We want to know that a company exists. That it will remain. That there's someone behind the interface. That if something extraordinary happens, there's an organization capable of responding.

Physical presence can contribute to building that perception. Not necessarily through a traditional branch. It could be a flagship office, a drop-off point, an experiential space, a pop-up shop, an event, a brand activation, or a campaign that physically occupies the city.

The physical presence thus becomes a sign of trust, support, and belonging.

The Digital Frontier Doesn't Separate Two Worlds

At the National Consulting Center, we've termed the space the internet actually occupies in people's daily lives the Digital Frontier.

Our Digital Appropriation Study allows us to determine which activities we perform exclusively online, which remain in the traditional world, and which we develop by combining both.

The results from Colombia and Chile offer an interesting insight.

In Colombia, 38% of the activities analyzed are performed exclusively online. In Chile, it's 39%. The difference is barely one percentage point.

But when we look at activities that combine digital and traditional channels, a much larger gap emerges: 27% in Colombia versus 33% in Chile.

Perhaps a more digitally advanced society isn't simply one that manages to move more activities online.

It can also be one that learns to better combine both worlds.

“For the organization, they are different channels. For the customer, it's a single relationship. That difference is fundamental. Omnichannel is not about accumulating channels. It's about ensuring they all form part of the same experience. And today we must incorporate an additional element: artificial intelligence.”

From Multichannel to a Single Experience

People don't necessarily think in terms of channels. We might discover a product on social media, research it online, chat with an AI assistant, visit a store, buy it through an app, pick up the product in person, and then resolve an issue by phone.

For the organization, these are different channels. For the customer, it's a single relationship. That difference is fundamental.

Omnichannel isn't about accumulating channels. It's about making them all part of the same experience. And today, we must incorporate an additional element: artificial intelligence.

The challenge is no longer just deciding what should be physical and what should be digital. We also need to determine which interactions can be automated, which require human intervention, and when the customer should be able to seamlessly transition between them.

Finding the Digital Boundary for Every Business

There is no single, universally correct digital boundary.

A financial institution, a university, an insurance company, a retail business, a telecommunications company, and a healthcare provider each establish different relationships with their customers.

The right boundary depends on the people, the service, and the moment of the experience.

That's why the strategic question shouldn't be:

How do we make our company more digital?

Rather, it should be: What combination of digital, physical, and human experiences generates the most value, trust, and loyalty for our customers?

Answering that question requires understanding how people use technology, what they expect from each channel, what experiences create differentiation, where failures occur, and what happens when they need to regain trust in an organization.

At the Centro Nacional de Consultoría, we integrate the knowledge developed through Digital Adoption, Digital Boundary, CX, UX, and Loyalty to help organizations identify that combination.

Perhaps one of the most interesting lessons from digitally native companies is precisely this:

Digital transformation isn't about making the physical world disappear. It's about understanding what role it should play within an increasingly digital relationship.

And when even companies born on the internet invest in buildings, meeting places, logistics, experiences, and urban presence, they're reminding us of something essential: a brand can live on a screen, but trust, prestige, relationships, and loyalty are built in a much broader world.

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What is your organization's digital frontier?

At the Centro Nacional de Consultoría, we integrate knowledge about Digital Adoption, Digital Frontier, CX, UX, and Loyalty to help organizations understand how their customers combine digital, physical, and human experiences.

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