Mexico | IndusLatin

Promoting India Latin America Collaboration

Taco Bell in India?!

November 24th, 2008 Posted in Food and Beverages, India, Mexico

Selling Mexican food in India is a no-brainer. Last year, in Bangalore, I bought taco shells and stuffing imported from Sweden! Grupo Bimbo, where are you?

Mexican operators like Taco Inn, Coco Express, El Fogoncito and El Tizoncito should follow Taco Bell’s foodsteps. It is still early days.

Yum Brands Bets on Taco Bell To Win Over Customers Overseas – WSJ.com

To expand Taco Bell, which has been the company’s most profitable U.S. brand, Yum plans to put the chain in Spain by the beginning of next year and in India by April. Right now, there are about 240 Taco Bells in 10 countries outside the U.S., with the majority in Canada and Puerto Rico.

The challenge will be going to countries where Mexican food isn’t popular and persuading customers to try the Americanized version sold at Taco Bell (!!!). Mr. Novak says the lack of authenticity in the chain’s Mexican cuisine is an advantage. “It owns its own category,” he says.

Other American food companies are trying to export Mexican food to other countries. General Mills Inc. sells its Old El Paso brand in about 20 countries.

Technorati Tags: mexican food

Popularity: 17% [?]

In food crisis, Mexican valley offers lessons

November 12th, 2008 Posted in Agriculture, Mexico, Science and Innovation

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The Associated Press:

Even here in Mexico, in this vibrant wheat belt crisscrossed by tractors and crop dusters, farmers are in a daily struggle. Climate change is blamed for more frequent droughts, hotter temperatures and the spread of new plant diseases. The cost of fertilizers has tripled, and their overuse has depleted soils, spewed more greenhouse gas into the skies and polluted water with farm runoff.

“It was a clearer agenda when Dr. Borlaug was here: The goal was to produce more food, period,” said Tom Payne of the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. “Now our agenda has kind of brought in a lot of different facets that make it a lot more difficult.”

Matthew Reynolds, a wheat physiologist at the center, said the next green revolution needs to mix tried-and-true technologies with sustainable practices, or the world will be fighting famine again in another 50 years.

“We applied the Industrial Revolution model to the green agricultural revolution and we went a little bit too far in that direction, and now we have to back off a bit and respect the fact that the plants and the soil are biological,” he said. “They are not engineering problems. They’re more complex.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

Narayana Hrudayalaya plans health city in Mexico

November 12th, 2008 Posted in Health and Pharma, India, Mexico

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Implementation of this ‘health city’ idea is long overdue. With 46 million Americans without health insurance, and increasing number of them retiring baby boomers with insufficient or no insurance coverage due to preexisting medical conditions, it is only logical that the medical tourism and overseas living trend will accelerate for older Americans in the years to come. Besides health care facilities in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, full-fledged retirement villages can be built by Indian companies to cater to retiring Americans with lifetime savings under $200,000 and monthly pensions under $1500.
The Economic Times

Indian hospital major Narayana Hrudayalaya plans to set up a health city in Mexico that will also cater to patients from the US. “Our next project will be a health city in Mexico. We may tie up with some American hospitals for this project,” said Devi Shetty, eminent cardiologist and chairman of the Narayana Hrudayalaya group of hospitals.

“The health city in Mexico will be a 3,000 to 5,000-bed facility and we are looking for joint ventures,” he said adding that the government of Mexico had requested the group to set up a large health facility.

Sources said the health city would come up either in Mexico City, the capital of Mexico or at Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico. Shetty said the proposed health city would also cater to the requirements of patients from America.

“We foresee healthcare delivery problems in the United States. They also have problems in undertaking a 20-hour journey to India for heart and other surgeries. As Mexico is closer to America, they will find it easy to undergo treatment there,” he said.

Technorati Tags: medical tourism

Popularity: 6% [?]

Mexico: Suitable destination for BPOs

November 11th, 2008 Posted in India, IT, Mexico

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CIOL News Reports

With more than 1,200 software, BPO and IT services firms, Mexico generated revenues of $4 billion in 2007 growing at 36 percent annually (including IT oursourcing) of which $3.1 billion were exports, [Ricardo Alvarez, executive director of International Promotion, Mexico] said.

Home to ten Indian IT firms, Mexico is rolling the red carpet for more Indian IT firms to set up shop there. Sasken, Mphasis, Sutherland, Hexware, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Aricent, iGate and Mindtree have logged their presence in Mexico from 2005. “Our purpose in participating at IT.biz is to diversify our markets and establish better IT ties with India, he says.

Mexico’s need of IT service professionals is expected to double from 41,000 in 2007 to 89,000 in 2013 and BPO professionals triple from 50,000 in 2007 to 155,000 in 2013, he said, adding it has 23 regional IT clusters in 20 states. For promoting IT in the country, Mexico First initiative is being rolled out with $100 million spend over the next five years, Alvarez adds.

Mexico, he said, was pushing Mexico City, State of Mexico, Jalisco, Nuevo Leon, Puebla, Sonora, Sinaloa and Veracruz, as fast-growing IT industry destinations for nearshore outsouring with advantages like time-zone alignment, lower costs, fast and simple visa regime, ease of software and hardware procurement, and legal and IP protection.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Consumer Credit: An International Crisis

November 11th, 2008 Posted in Banking and Finance, India, Mexico

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Seeking Alpha

India is facing similar problems with its formerly debt-loving middle class. Livemint.com reports:

[Indian] Bankers said the trend has intensified in recent months and the portfolio may have shrunk by about 10% this fiscal year so far. This is significant, as the industry has seen growth at an average 30% in each of the past four years.

The percentage of non-performing assets, or NPAs, in banks’ credit card portfolios has almost tripled, going up from 5-8% in fiscal 2008 to 15-20% in the current fiscal. NPAs are the portion of the credit card portfolio where a customer has not paid dues for at least 90 days.

It’s getting pretty bad in India and leading Indian banks like ICICI Bank Ltd. (NYSE:IBN) are also going to have lots of problems to deal with. However, it’s not just India, Mexico is also having its own issues with consumer credit.

Wal-Marts (WMT) in Mexico, who extend credit to their customers, are starting to take measures to limit the risks associated with consumer lending. Last week, Mexico’s Wal-Marts upped the interest rate on the credit they extend to customers to 70% per year.

It’s tough to imagine too many consumers willing to pay that kind of interest rate to buy anything other than absolute essentials.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Cinepolis plans $350-m India show, scouts for local partners

October 30th, 2008 Posted in India, Media and Entertainment, Mexico

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The Economic Times

Leading global multiplex player Cinepolis is entering India. The Mexico-based firm, considered to be the fifth-largest cinema operator
globally, has initiated talks with real estate developers in the country for its multiplex operations. Once it starts operations, it would become the only international multiplex player in the domestic market.

According to sources, Cinepolis India, which is a wholly- owned subsidiary of Cinepolis Mexico, has earmarked $350 million for its India operations.

Replying to ET’s e-mail questionnaire, Cinepolis India country manager Minal Saini said, “We are committed to India. Our initial target is to have presence in 40 cities. In the next 5-7 years, our goal is to have 500 screens.”

The exhibition chain is expected to position itself as a premium destination
. “We are looking at cities with the right combination of affluence, movie watching propensity and population.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Mexico flavour at Bangalore IT.biz 2008

October 30th, 2008 Posted in India, IT, Mexico

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The Economic Times

Mexico would be the flavour at this year’s Bangalore IT.biz 2008 here from November 6 with the ICT event getting the backing of more than 100 companies including the likes of Infosys, Microsoft, Intel and IBM.

As a partner country, Mexico would send a 50-strong delegation that would include the Minister of Economy, government officials and industry representatives, organisers said at a news conference.

In addition, there would be delegations from countries such Germany, Japan, Denmark and the UK who would take part in the three-day, eleventh edition of the event, a B2B platform for the IT, ITES and allied businesses for Indian as well as global companies.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Mexico’s Softtek on the Off-shoring Landscape

October 22nd, 2008 Posted in IT, Mexico

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BusinessWeek

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve checked in with Indian IT and BPO outsourcing companies on how the global financial meltdown is affecting their businesses. So far, so good—even for those with a relatively high exposure to financial services clients. The near-shore scene is similar. Beni Lopez, CEO of Mexico-based Softtek’s near-shore operations, tells me there are a couple of forces at work. Under pressure because of concerns about the economy, some North American companies are trying near-shoring services for the first time. Meanwhile, some of Softtek’s existing customers have cut back on the services they require because of budgetary pressures. So far, “Softtek hasn’t felt the pain,” Lopez says. The company expects revenues to grow at more than 30% this year, roughly the rate of growth it has experienced for the past five years. One source of stability is its domestic Latin American business, which represents more than 50% of revenues. Brazil is growing fast, for instance.

Technorati Tags: offshoring, near-shoring

Popularity: 2% [?]

India-based iGATE Opens Mexican Operations

October 20th, 2008 Posted in India, IT, Mexico

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MarketWatch

iGATE Corporation, an integrated Technology and Operations (iTOPS) firm, announced that it will begin operating a new US$2 million facility in Guadalajara, Mexico on Monday, Oct. 20, 2008. The new center, iGATE Global Solutions Mexico S.A. de C.V., will utilize local workers to offer near-shore iTOPS, IT and BPO services to a variety of U.S. and Latin American clients.

iGATE’s Guadalajara facility is the latest addition to the company’s international network of locations in the United States, Canada, India, Malaysia, Australia and the United Kingdom, providing truly global, technology-based solutions to Fortune 1000 and government clients across a range of sectors. The facility plans to employ twenty-five staff in the near future, reaching one hundred by 2010.

“Mexico’s proximity to the U.S. and participation in NAFTA makes it an ideal location for a state of the art delivery facility. Our facility in Guadalajara will enable us to provide services with a very quick turnaround fuse like rapid application support and application development using rapid prototyping,” said Phaneesh Murthy, CEO, iGATE Corporation.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Havas Media: India most alarmed by climate change

October 17th, 2008 Posted in Brazil, Ecology/Environment, India, Mexico

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Eco-absorbed scores in line with National Geographic survey results from earlier this year.
Televisionpoint.com News

Based on interviews with more than 11,000 respondents in India, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, UK and US, the study unearthed both local and global characteristics that develop the current theories on a number of widely-debated issues.

Brazil, China and India are among those who claim to be most alarmed by climate change, while respondents in the US, UK and Germany demonstrates far lower levels of concern. Likewise, consumers in China, Brazil, Mexico and India would be significantly more willing than their North American, British and German counterparts to spend extra on environmentally-friendly products.

The survey revealed that 86 per cent of Indians would rather buy from companies that are trying to reduce their contribution to global warming. Further, 50 per cent of Indian respondents would be more likely to buy environmentally-friendly goods in the next 12 months, if they were at the same price and standard as their usual brands.

43 per cent of the Indians would be willing to pay a little extra for those goods. Interestingly, Indians believe the oil and fuel sector is the most damaging of all economic sectors in terms of the environment, while banking is perceived to be the least damaging. 57 per cent of Indian respondents also agree that their government is making a significant effort to combat climate change, the second highest proportion, behind only China

Further, 89 per cent of Indian respondents agree that tackling the issue of climate change means changing the way we live our lives. 50 per cent of respondents can be classed as eco-absorbed. The eco-absorbed are those who are very focused on the issue of climate change and India has the third-highest proportion (50 per cent) in the world – behind Brazil (58 per cent) and Mexico (56 per cent ) but far ahead of countries such as Germany (15 per cent) and the UK (17 per cent).

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