Country Of Mexico Into Five Major Regions example essay topic

For simplicity, we have broken down the country of Mexico into five major regions: Northwest (Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Baja California Sur), Northeast (Coahuila, Zacatecas, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, Tamaulipas), West Coast (Sinaloa, Jalisco, Nayarit, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Colima, Michoacan), Central (Morelos, Aguascalientes, Michoacan, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Estado de Mexico, Puebla, Queretaro, Tlaxcala, The Federal District), and South (Chiapas, Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatan). Each region is diverse in industry; some are more heavily involved in agriculture while others are most involved in high-tech manufacturing. Generally speaking the most important economic activities of all the regions include tourism, fishing, mining, agriculture / livestock, petroleum distilleries, and low / high -tech manufacturing (many maquiladoras exist along the California border). Central Mexico is the most industrialized region and accounts for almost 60% of the country's GNP. It is in this region that large multi-nationals such as Ford Motor Company, Nissan, and Texas Instruments, have chosen to establish major production plants. The implication of a country diverse in industry and culture is that there is a need for a workforce as diverse and skilled as each region's relative industries.

This is one of the most challenging issues that confronts the Mexican HR manager today, especially in the turbulence of a new political party and international deregulation. As the rampant modernization continues to spread and business becomes more privatized through new political agendas, major industries such as telecommunications, energy, and manufacturing, will become a major focus of Mexican business. Although still resembling an oligopoly ruled by major players such as Tele mex and Iusacell, the market scope of the Mexican telecommunications industry is expanding rapidly with the advent of cellular, satellite, and broadband, technologies. This emerging technology is the portal through which competition is entering. Globalstar de Mexico (a joint venture between Principia of Mexico, S. de R.L., Loral Space & Communications, and Vodafone Air touch) has already launched an affordable global satellite telephone service that can provide fixed service to remote locations without a fiber or cable network (1). In cellular, American Tower has entered into an agreement with Nuevo Grupo Lusacell to build 200 build-to-suit towers, and assume 400 existing towers (2).

In the related networking sector, Nortel has been awarded a contract from Telefonica Data to implement a nationwide ATM network in Mexico that will offer customers basic connectivity, internet access, and hosting services (3). The major players are responding aggressively and taking actions such as those of Carlos Slim Help (chairman of Telex) who announced the planned investment of $4.6 billion to implement digital service. Paralleling the boom in the telecommunications industry is the energy sector of Mexico. As industrial activity grows exponentially, so too does the need for electricity (projected demand is about 8% increase per year). Second to the fiscal policy, the energy sector has been targeted as one of the most urgent areas for reform by the Vicente Fox administration (5). The state-held petroleum monopoly Petrol eos Mexicans (PeM ex) is one of the five largest petroleum companies in the world and provides over 30 percent of the GDP of Mexico from petroleum revenues.

Like in the U.S., natural gas is the preferred alternative to petroleum as an energy source. However, with the recent doubling of prices, natural gas has become a less attractive alternative. Developing a solution to the nearing energy crisis of Mexico will be another major issue that faces the Fox administration. Moreover, this will be a costly solution as an estimate based on Mexico's growth rate projects a need for $4 billion of investment into energy to support growth; this is 40 percent of the entire Mexico federal budget (5). A third sector that has and will continue to experience strong growth is Manufacturing, especially high-tech manufacturing. Since Kodak first began manufacturing in Guadalajara in 1969, companies have increasingly looked to establish manufacturing plants in Mexico to take advantage of the relatively low labor rates and tax breaks (6).

Companies such as Lucent Technologies, Ericsson, Compaq Computer Corp., and Cisco Systems, have already established high-tech Maquiladoras (foreign owned manufacturing plants) in Mexico. Guadalajara is now recognized as a world leader in high-tech electronics manufacturing. The magazine Business Mexico calls Guadalajara the! SS silicon valley of the south!" , and estimates that more than U.S. $9 billion of electronics goods was exported in 1999 (7). With the increasing deregulation of inter-country commerce by NAFTA, the establishment of maquiladoras will continue to climb upward and become a necessary competitive factor for firms.

As the rapidly advancing industries of telecommunications, energy, and manufacturing, become a larger role in the economy of Mexico the question arises of what are the human resource implications. To develop a globally competitive workforce, the education system of Mexico will need to be augmented; currently Latin American governments only spend about U.S. $252 a year per pupil on education, compared to about U.S. $5,000 per year in developed nations (8). Regarding the supply of manual labor, there is already there is already a shortage of workers to support the maquiladora operations (in Tijuana the unemployment rate is only 2 percent) (9). For mid and high level management positions, the labor market is also tight and firms are turning to recruiting firms that can supply bilingual managers that can effectively interface with the shop floor and parent company executives. Consequently, there is a heavy reliance on expatriates to fill these positions. The tight labor market for blue and white-collar workers is one of the biggest issues that the U.S. MNE must confront in Mexico.

The shortage of manual laborers is largely outside the control of the U.S. MNE. However, the direct-control that U.S. MNE's do have is the selection of HR managers that can find solutions to this labor shortage. As stated previously, these managers must also have the ability to effectively communicate with the host country's labor force at all levels and the home country's management. The option of using corporate recruiters is readily available, but the U.S. MNE must also understand the unique issues that HR managers will face when accepting such responsibilities. In the U.S. basic protections such as workplace safety, ability to effectively communicate, and a comfortable standard of living, are taken for granted. Mexican and expatriate managers are not afforded the luxury of these assumptions.

More than 25 percent of the Mexican population lives in poverty and many regions lack basic infrastructures for utilities such as electricity, water and sewage systems, and housing is sub-standard when compared to that of the U.S. Drug trafficking and crime are often cited in the media along with regional strife. One source sites that Mexico City ranks second in the world for kidnappings (9). Under these considerations, it is evident why expatriates and Mexicans skilled in management have reservations about taking mid and upper level positions in Mexico. Initiatives that the U.S. MNE can take to find managers who can effectively work in such a context include using a careful candidate selection process and ensuring that the candidate selected is equitably compensated.

First and foremost, the MNE must give consideration to only those candidates that have the technical expertise required for the given position and has the disposition of a manager that can adapt and be effective in a dynamic environment. If the candidate meets this qualification, the psychodynamics and demographic profile of the candidate is considered:" h The self-oriented dimension"h The perceptual dimension"h The others-oriented dimension"h The cultural-toughness dimension.