Boom in services to multinationals from Mexico; plant requirement obsolete

In recent years, Mexico has become a strategic hub for multinational corporations seeking to establish service and logistics support centers, serving as a support hub for their headquarters and plants throughout the Americas. Just as call centers handle calls from all over the world, this new service model is now transcending industrial sectors, particularly in the healthcare sector, which should ideally lead to efficiencies that promote more affordable products for patients.

It's a model that reflects an evolving perception of Mexico as an investment destination; it positions us as a hub for qualified talent; it diversifies foreign investment; and it raises the professional profile of the Mexican labor market.

Foreign investment in Mexico is associated with the opening of manufacturing plants that rely heavily on cheap labor. However, this paradigm is falling by the wayside. The President's Office should consider that the plant requirement is becoming obsolete. Transnational corporations now recognize opportunities beyond production. Service centers require highly qualified and better-paid personnel. Unlike manufacturing plants, where technical specialization is key (as in pharmaceutical production), these centers require diverse expertise: information technology, systems, human resources, finance, administration, and marketing.

Novartis, pioneer in this model

Novartis has its Corporate Services Center in Mexico City (NOCCMxC), one of six designed to provide high-quality solutions to its divisions and units worldwide. It was here that Novartis initiated the concept with financial services for Mexico a decade ago. Over time, its success led to expansion into Latin America, and today the center supports Canada and the United States with a wide range of services: data, digital, information technology (ICT), purchasing, manufacturing automation, standardization, infrastructure, safety and hygiene, and digital marketing, and even sensitive areas such as patient care, medical solutions, and consulting. Today, NOCCMxC employs 1,100 of the 1,500 people Novartis employs in Mexico, including engineers, chemists, physicians, psychologists, marketers, and professionals with bachelor's and doctoral degrees. Although the majority are Mexican, the center has representatives of 10 other nationalities. Novartis operates 5 centers of the same type as the one it has in Mexico: 3 in Europe (Dublin, Slovenia and the Czech Republic) and 2 in Asia (India and Kuala Lumpur).

Baxter, another prominent case

Baxter has established a technology innovation center in Guadalajara with 300 employees. From this headquarters, the company provides ICT services to the Americas, from Canada to Argentina, covering everything from technical support to artificial intelligence. Oscar Javier Pérez, general manager of Baxter in Mexico, describes this center as "a wonderful Silicon Valley" in Jalisco, where employees speak several languages and bring an innovative approach. Initially focused on support services for kidney damage solutions, after the company's spin-off, the Jalisco center was also divided into two: one for Baxter and another for Vantive, led in Mexico by Larry Vasco, who retained all the renal solutions business.

Baxter also has centers in Bangladesh (Asia) and Warsaw (Poland) to serve other markets. At the service center in Mexico, its managers emphasize a unique environment, far removed from traditional corporatism, with technical profiles such as engineers, programmers, and computer geniuses, many from states like Chiapas, Veracruz, or northern Mexico. These employees, mostly Mexican (with only 5% foreigners), work in T-shirts and sneakers, often telecommuting, reflecting a modern and specialized work culture.

Bayer and its international logistics center

Bayer, for its part, at its strengthened Lerma plant, where it employs 650 people, began forming a specialized logistics team to support operations in the United States, with plans to expand to the southern part of the continent. This group seeks to improve the efficiency of other locations by leveraging local talent.

The three companies praise the skills of Mexican personnel, highlighting their versatility in ICT, human resources, finance, and marketing. Bayer executives have noted that, unlike in the United States, where they lacked the necessary expertise for a specialized logistics site, Mexico offers professionals with deep industrial knowledge, ideal for supporting regional operations. Novartis, for example, has successfully replicated marketing strategies developed in Mexico in other markets, consolidating the relevance of local talent.

This innovative model demonstrates that Mexico attracts investment in the healthcare sector not only for its manufacturing capacity, but also for its human talent and its potential as a center for high-value services. As transnational corporations diversify their strategies, the country is positioning itself as a key player in the global economy, driven by a workforce adapted to the demands of the 21st century.

IMSS Bienestar does not receive supplies from suppliers

Now that Dr. Alejandro Svarch, along with President Claudia Sheinbaum, are inaugurating hospitals every weekend, it would be good for them to figure out how to guarantee a solution to the endless shortages, because otherwise, neither those hospitals they are inaugurating nor any others will be able to function properly. We're told that the IMSS Bienestar warehouses are not receiving supplies from suppliers for three reasons: 1. Because they lack a platform that allows them to operate with structure and control; 2. Because their warehouses have limited hours to receive supplies; and 3. Because their cold storage networks are congested.

That AMLO did leave the money to pay pharmaceutical companies

By the way, we received a version that the previous government did give the funds to pay the debt to suppliers left by Insabi to IMSS Bienestar, but the new administration, led by Dr. Svarch, didn't give it enough importance. No one pressured it, and it let months go by without paying the companies. So, as the year came to an end, the Federal Treasury reclaimed the billions of pesos for other items because they needed to be spent. The suppliers (namely, members of Canifarma, Amelaf, Anafam, and AMIIF), preoccupied and busy with the next purchase organized by Eduardo Clark—since they even worked through Christmas and New Year's—were left holding the bag, and now they are still begging to be paid. The problem is for the SMEs that cannot survive by financing their public creditors, and quite a few have collapsed along the way.

Birmex has no date for resolving the purchase.

And now that Birmex has declared its most recent tender for logistics and distribution services for medicines and medical supplies void, citing serious technical failures by the main participating companies, it's clear they have no urgency to end the supply crisis while patients and medical professionals continue to endure shortages. We've learned that this administration's strategy is to finally sideline Traxion, led by Rodolfo Mercado, who, if we recall, was the darling of the previous administration. Birmex, then led by General Jens Pedro Lohmann, provided it with the logistics operation for purchasing medicines for years, even though it lacked specialized logistics experience for medical supplies. In fact, Traxion had to buy Medistik to portray itself as an expert. After earning billions of pesos with the first floor of the 4T, they're now heading south.