A broad ranging discussion I had with the Ambassador at his office in Buenos Aires last week.
The Latin America Interview with Indian Ambassador R. Viswanathan
December 23rd, 2011 Posted in Brazil, colombia, Commodities, India, Infrastructure, Investing, Latin America, Mexico, Uruguay
For sure India needs more design thinking in products and services; with many engineers running the show, good design, sadly, is thought of an expense.
Nussbaum: | Co.Design
If you’re a business or an NGO with an operation in Asia or Latin America, where do you go when you want some serious local design thinking? You might start by calling my colleague and friend Carlos Teixeira, a Brazilian-born assistant professor at the School of Design Strategies, in Parsons The New School for Design. Carlos is speeding the transfer of design thinking expertise by building his own network called NODES.NODES connects Parsons to Idiom Design and Consulting, a key design thinking-based consultancy in India. Idiom founder Sonia Manchanda is a close friend of Carlos and recently helped launch SPREAD to spread the word of design thinking in her country. Here’s what the Idiom Web site says about it:“SPREAD was hence born as the design outreach program of Idiom. Since its induction three years ago SPREAD has successfully worked with various institutions and business houses conducting workshops, seminar programs and lectures to make design a weapon to transform and grow our economy and to better plan our lives and environment. SPREAD makes design thinking, tools and processes accessible to design and business students, practitioners and even school children.”
Today, along the NODES network, one can see the thinking between the Parsons design knowledge network lab and Idiom’s SPREAD project. As NODES expands to other consultancies and schools, Carlos expects increasing knowledge to flow South to South among consultancies in Asia, Latin America and Africa as well as between South to North.
Business is beginning to follow. European and U.S. corporations are increasingly using local innovation consultancies for their local business. And other emerging market countries are starting to hire consultancies schooled in design thinking. Idiom was recently hired by companies in Sri Lanka who have heard of its strategic design capabilities and Brazil-based Crama has new business in Angola for the same reason. Mexico-based Insitum has opened offices in the U.S., Brazil and Colombia, and works in Canada.
In a move that will enable Tata Motors Ltd to establish a beachhead in North America and a few other emerging markets, India’s largest auto maker by revenue is in talks with Mexico-based Metalsa SA de CV for a contract manufacturing arrangement, two people familiar with the development said. If the talks lead to an arrangement, the unit will manufacture the Indica Vista, Indigo Manza and the Nano.“A team from Tata Motors consisting of senior officials, recently visited Mexico for the purpose,” said one of the two people.Tata Motors’ move to enter new markets through a contract manufacturing arrangement mirrors its past moves of making a low-cost entry into new markets. In 2008, it bolstered its presence in South Africa by acquiring a used assembly plant owned by Nissan Motor Co. in that country.
Metalsa, a subsidiary of Grupo Proeza, manufactures components for the passenger car and commercial vehicle makers. Grupo Proeza is a privately-held Mexican group with diversified interests in automotive, foundry, juices and fruits, information technology and healthcare.
In the exploration space, once again the power of incentives in action. Plus, Mexico is going down the latter side of Hubbert’s curve.
Brazil is self-sufficient in fuel. All this oil is a nice bonus, since currently, half of Brazilian cars run on flex-fuel ethanol technology and in 10 years, 75% of light vehicles will. When the next major oil shock comes, you can move to Brazil and peacefully ride it out.
Brazil is poised to overtake longtime energy powerhouses Mexico and Venezuela as Latin America’s biggest oil producer, a result of both political flexibility and natural resources. Trends suggest Brazil could rise to the top of the heap by 2011, as its ultra-deep offshore fields start producing in the months ahead.Meanwhile, Mexico and Venezuela have seen crude-oil output drop dramatically in recent years. Traditionally high oil production in those countries made state-owned oil companies complacent, said David Shields, an independent energy analyst in Mexico City. “Basically, the reason is that Brazil had a crisis to deal with in energy and Venezuela and Mexico never did,” said Mr. Shields.
Brazilian state-run energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, was forced to adapt to free-market pressures in the mid-1990s when former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso opened Brazil’s oil industry, a Petrobras monopoly, to private competition. The result was a wave of exploration, with production surging by about 50% since 2000. Petrobras, responsible for more than 95% of Brazil’s output, produced just over two million barrels a day in November.
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As Indian firms fight the threat of H-1B restrictions, IT services companies might not leave their fate to politics. In an effort to reduce their need for visas, they may look to increase their presence south of the border.Indian IT firms have boosted operations in Mexico in recent years to serve Latin American and U.S. customers. One advantage to doing so involves the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which enables Mexican and Canadian professionals to work in the U.S. without an H-1B visa.
In other words, Indian firms could send employees to Mexico, and then move some of their Mexican workers to the U.S. under the auspices of the treaty. The Mexican workers would not need an H-1B visa to work in the U.S., though they would need what’s called a TN visa. That visa is available to Mexican and Canadian nationals who qualify under a number of professional categories and meet specific education and experience requirements.
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Indian Inc has begun taking measures to counter any possible impact on employees and operations from the outbreak that is rapidly spreading across nations. Some 15 Indian companies–from IT to pharmaceuticals to auto components–have delivery centres or manufacturing facilities in Mexico. The prominent names being Infosys, Wipro, Birla Carbon Black, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, JK Tyres, Essel Propack and Videocon.Essel Propack, the world’s leading laminated tubes manufacturer, has a plant in Mexico and its clients include Unilever and Procter & Gamble. Set up five years ago, the Mexican unit has staff strength of 126 and contribute 6% to Essel Propack’s revenues. JK Tyre had in June 2008 acquired a tyre-manufacturing company Tornel, which has three plants, in Mexico.
Technorati Tags: india, mexico, investment
Mexico as a nearshoring destination for manufacturing and IT companies.
BusinessWeek
COSTSThe peso has dropped 41% vs. the dollar since August, making Mexican wages and rents more attractive compared with those in China, the U.S., or Canada.
LOGISTICSMexican goods can reach U.S. cities in two days, vs. a month from China—a big factor as importers slash inventory costs and lead times.
RISKMexico looks better than China when it comes to technology theft, quality issues, travel costs, and delays due to miscommunication.
Technorati Tags: mexico, investing, FDI
Some cash rich Indian hospital chain needs to consolidate these solo/duo dental practitioners South of the US border – and speed up regulatory compliance and obtain insurance company blessing for these procedures, after the necessary rebranding. Apollo, Fortis, Wockhardt anybody?!
A huge belt from Mexico to Central America and the Caribbean are ripe pickings. Indian specialist doctors can be flow-in for 2 to 3 month shifts to augment local medical talent.
At a CII Latin American conclave held in Bangalore on Feb 24-25, Ana Vilma de Escobar, VP of El Salvador was making the same pitch – for Indian hospitals to locate in that country to serve American clients. 2 hr plan ride from Miami, Houston etc.
chicagotribune.com
[Los Algodones] a sleepy village on the U.S. border into the latest boomtown of medical tourism, the practice of traveling abroad to get medical care. From face-lifts in Costa Rica to heart surgery in India, medical tourism has become a $60 billion enterprise by one estimate.Los Algodones, population 4,000, is home to about 350 dentists geared to foreign patients, including snowbirds from Chicago and elsewhere in the upper Midwest. Their treatment comes at a huge discount—70 percent or more—from what Americans pay at home, a reality that many patients call an indictment of U.S. health care.
But U.S. medical authorities warn that this desert outpost is a medical Wild West, an unregulated environment where substandard providers can hang their shingle without the same oversight that exists in the United States.
Rubbing his jaw after getting a dental implant, Wisconsin native Carl Zeutzius downplayed those worries, saying he was pleased by the care and by a bill that was 75 percent cheaper than in the U.S.
“We’re in favor of helping the economy in the United States, but we don’t want to be ripped off, either,” said Zeutzius, who winters in Arizona with his wife, Chris.
A recent survey reported about 350 dentists working in 160 offices. While pharmacies and eye doctors also share the sidewalks with quesadilla stands and souvenir vendors, dental care is the real engine. A Phoenix company, Dayo Dental, organizes van rides to make the three-hour run each way. TLC Dental has even opened a bed-and-breakfast adjacent to its dental office for visitors who want to make an overnight trip of it.
The consulting firm Deloitte found that 2 in 5 Americans would go abroad for medical care if they could save 50 percent of costs and were assured that the quality of care was comparable.
Technorati Tags: medical tourism, mexico, dental
Tradition and modernity makes a beautiful blend in the 16 paintings by Delhi-based artist, Nitai Das who is currently exhibiting his collection at Jehangir Art Gallery.In his artworks, done with oils and acrylics, Nitai has combined Indian traditional and Mexican folk art with a few contemporary touches. So, while the subjects of his plays are traditional gods and goddesses, the style with which he has executed them, according to the artist, has evolved over several years of research and practice.
Behind the harmonic strokes of the paintbrush on the canvas, there are angry words conveyed by the artist – a message against the aimless imbibing of Western influence into our traditional artworks. Das explains, “Folk art is probably one genre where we have little choice to copy from Western art. When young artists blindly copy from Western artists, it is a blow to our indigenous evolution of art.”
To complement thousand-year-old indigenous Indian art, Das has combined elements from Mexican folk art, a tradition that took birth in the cradle of a civilisation that is one of the oldest to have formed on the face of the earth. However, it was no mean task. It took years of research and experimentation that culminated in the current collection.
Latin America will reach over 388 million mobile lines in service at the end of this year, accounting for 9.6 percent of the overall mobile lines in service worldwide, according to the Information Society index (ISI) established by consulting firm Everis. Brazil is expected to end the year with 143.2 million phones, Mexico with 76.9 million and Argentina with 44.8 million, which together account for nearly seven of every ten mobile lines in the region.Mobile networks cover the entire populations only in Uruguay and Chile, while in Ecuador and Colombia they reach 84 percent of the population. Bolivia has the lowest mobile coverage, reaching only 45.9 percent of the country’s population. Argentina registers a higher mobile penetration than population coverage, with 102.2 mobile phones per 100 inhabitants.
Technorati Tags: telecom, mobile, Latin America, teledensity
