Mexico has recently been gaining traction as an attractive nearshore destination and many Mexican IT companies such as Softtek and Neoris have been emerging as global leaders in the services business. And expanding in this region lately is Infosys, which set up a center in Monterrey, Mexico.
The IT services industry is estimated to be growing at 8.9 percent per annum in the city of Monterrey, according to Gartner. Although small, Monterrey has unique advantages, which can be exploited to vault it into a zone of rapid growth. The city’s prime advantage is its proximity to the U.S. market and presence of leading universities.
“In the last five years, about 1.5 million students have graduated from various colleges and this figure will increase to 5 million over the next five years. In Mexico, out of every 100 students, 17 students study engineering, representing 21 percent of the total workers with degrees,” informs Mohit Joshi, Head, Infosys Latin America.
Other benefit that one gets from being near to its customers, is the savings on bandwidth costs. So the closer your programmers are to corporate headquarters, the better.
Another big advantage for Monterrey is the North American Free Trade Act, which allows the free flow of goods and services between Mexico, Canada and the U.S., and also protects Intellectual Property Rights in all the three nations.
Even with all these advantages, availability of talent with experience and expertise is an issue, and this is coupled with the problem of poor telecommunications within the city.
Another major barrier here is proficiency in English. Most programmers in Monterrey speak in Spanish. But a relatively low salary of a programmer, $5,150 (according to neoIT), becomes a benefit when compared to other American and European cities.
The Mexican government has acknowledged that the software sector is a priority sector and has established the Program for the Development of the Software Industry (PROSOFT). The program aims to promote the country’s technology industry. Its goal is to increase the size of the Mexican IT industry to $15 billion by 2013.
Also two of the three technology parks in Mexico, Monterrey Technology Park and Apodaca Technology Park, are located in Monterrey. These locations have the advantage of a large pool of existing technology companies, good infrastructure and tax breaks for locating in the parks.
| MONTERREY: Five Things to do |
1 Macro Plaza - The City's Center
The six blocks long and one block narrow Macro Plaza or Gran Plaza, is definitely the centerpiece attraction in Monterrey. Comprising a series of smaller plazas joined together to form a pedestrian plaza with fountains, parks, benches, shade trees, the city theatre and bandstands, its landscape is dominated by The Faro de Comercio, or Tower of Commerce. The tower is a great starting point for a leisurely stroll through the heart of Monterrey. |
2 Barrio Antiguo
A must on every visitors list of things to do, Barrio Antiguo, or the old town gives a good feel of the colonial architecture that was prevalent in Monterrey around the turn of the century. You can also get a taste of Monterrey's numerous culinary delights, as some of the town's finer eateries, quaint cafes and night spots are located here. |
3 San Pedro Garza Garcia
With wide streets and landscaped center medians, Garza Garcia can boast of being México's safest city, with a modern, high tech, police force and city government. Also located here is Planetario Alfa, a high tech complex featuring an observatory, a science garden, pre-Hispanic garden, open aviary and an IMAX dome theatre. |
4 Chipinque National Park
On a distance of 15 minutes from the city center, the National Park offers a very pleasant location for many outdoor activities. |
5 Shopping
Art and craft, furniture, leather accessories — you name it and you get it here. The Zona Rosa is the center of shopping in the downtown area. Apart from local street market, modern shopping malls are also very popular. |
Service Providers in Monterrey
ACS, Capgemini, Clientlogic, DaimlerChrysler Financial Services, Genpact, Hexaware Technologies, Hildebrando, HTC, Infosys, Neoris, Softtek, Teleperformance, Wipro |
Q&A
Mohit Joshi
Head, Infosys Latin America
"Infosys chose to establish an office in Monterrey due to its proximity to top-tier universities and the large pool of technology skills."
Presently employing 87 people, Infosys Monterrey, aims to grow to 1,000 in the next three years. Mohit Joshi, Head, Infosys Latin America spoke to Adyasha Sinha about company's business plans
What are your expansion plans in the region?
Being a recent entrant in the LatAm region, we’re constantly evaluating opportunities that will enable us to provide better service to our customers. Infact, our expansion into Latin America was based on a strong customer demand. At this point, though, it’s too early to share any details whether additional locations in LatAm are being explored.
Which regions are you serving from the Monterrey center?
Monterrey allows us to improve services to existing customers in the U.S., Latin America and Europe.
What kind of work Infosys is doing from this center?
We are offering mostly the same services currently available from our other facilities, including business consulting, infrastructure management and business process outsourcing.
What advantages and opportunities you saw in Monterrey ?
Monterrey occupies a unique niche in Latin America given its size and proximity to the U.S. and Europe, and possesses a resource pool that supports our operations predominantly in the same time zone with multilanguage capabilities.
Furthermore, one of the reasons Infosys chose to establish an office in Monterrey was for its proximity to top-tier universities and the large pool of technology skills.
What steps have you taken to mitigate business challenges?
Our business philosophy is based on four elements — Predictability, Sustainability, Profitability and De-risking. Our data centers are highly redundant and backed up at multiple locations; and security — of our customers’ data and the physical security of our employees — is taken very seriously. It’s a framework that we apply to everything we do, ranging from customer projects to new facility development.
