MEDICAL DEVICES
Companies are leveraging many advantages of Mexico's health sector to combine high-tech with low-cost for innovative market solutions and continued growth.
Mexico is extremely important. After China, Latin America is the fastest-growing region. BD Mexico represents the second-largest market in Latin America for the company after Brazil and is truly key for the corporation. We have a track record of double-digit growth in Mexico for the last three years. In the local Mexican market, we have two big segments—medical and life sciences. We are a key player in the medical segment, with medical technology that goes from small disposables, such as plastic syringes, to catheters and instruments for infection prevention. We have a whole set of solutions that help hospitals reduce communal infections. Our business is about 50% public and 50% private sector. We have a team of clinical experts who have a direct presence in the hospitals and look at their needs. Some of these hospitals are joint-commission certified and have to adopt the best practices and the latest technology. These hospitals are, thus, early adopters of our differentiated products. We build models to demonstrate that if hospitals adopt more sophisticated devices, these will help avoid other risks and allow them to discharge patients sooner, thereby reducing the overall end-to-end healthcare cost per patient. This creates greater capacity for public hospitals to treat other patients and helps achieve greater healthcare coverage.
The decision to acquire Covidien was strategic because Medtronic had a specialized legacy, focused on high-level, high-tech devices and was positioned in areas where the market has to be developed. The Covidien portfolio allowed Medtronic to expand the mission to help more people. The acquisition re-leveraged and expanded the portfolio of Medtronic and truly increased our contacts with patients. As an example, before the merger, Medtronic reached a patient every two seconds. Now our therapies improve the lives of more than two people every second. This impact influenced the company's strategy, operations, and mission. If we truly want to change and shift our approach of selling products to offering services and solutions, we have to have the breadth and depth of the portfolio to be able to do that, as well as be more relevant to hospitals. To become successful in Mexico, a company has to learn how to work with the government, because 80% of people are receiving healthcare in the public sector. In order to become partners of the public sector, we realized we needed to change the approach by working together to identify challenges and have a common understanding of the problems we are facing. In addition, we need to work to find innovative ways to make technology available within the available budgets.
Both of Integer's legacy organizations, Greatbatch and Lake Region Medical, already had operations in Mexico. Now, we are a company with multiple manufacturing sites worldwide and have a lot of duplication in our processes as a result. Since we have multiple sites doing machining, molding, and wire coiling, we are looking to optimize manufacturing to consolidate our growth. Growth is our first priority, so being in low-cost countries like Malaysia or Mexico helps us be competitive from our customers' price perspective. The other enabler for growth is performance, including on-time delivery, quality, and service, which historically our legacy operations in Mexico have provided. We ship to over 200 customers in over 40 countries from our Mexican locations. We ship over 50 million components and devices from Mexico. About 25% of our associates worldwide are Mexican, which already represents a significant segment of our business and global footprint. We have just opened 46,000sqm in Tijuana, much of which is already in operation or ready to take on future projects. We want to leverage our history with our customers and our operational excellence to drive more growth by partnering with our customers in the early stages on design and development. Mexico is our largest manufacturing country after the US.
MEDICAL DEVICES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Interview
Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary , UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
TBY talks to Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on Mexico's structural reforms in line with the 2030 Agenda and maintaining consistent growth.
read articleInterview
Frederic García, President, Consejo Ejecutivo de Empresas Globales (CEEG)
TBY talks to Frederic García, President of Consejo Ejecutivo de Empresas Globales (CEEG), on making Mexico a more attractive FDI destination and promoting growth and development in the South and Southeast.
read articleInterview
Dr. Enrique Cabrero Mendoza, Director General, National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT)
TBY talks to Dr. Enrique Cabrero Mendoza, Director General of National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), on investing more in science, technology, and innovation and positioning Mexico as a knowledge economy.
read articleInterview
Sergio Ayala, General Manager, GIFAN
TBY talks to Sergio Ayala & Alberto Rementeria, Directors of GIFAN, on identifying and capturing niche markets in Mexico, importing healthy and profitable solutions in the food industry, and working with forward-thinking, medium-sized companies.
read articleInterview
Carlos Morales Paulín, Country Manager, Telefónica
TBY talks to Carlos Morales Paulín, Country Manager of Telefónica, on how to provide the best customer service on the market, an ultra-competitive suite of products, and forcing the competition to improve customer standards in the process.
read articleFocus: Digital Television Transition
Digitalizati-ON!
Starting with the first analog blackout in Tijuana, Baja California in June 2013, Mexico has achieved an effective national transition to digital television. According to data from the Federal Telecommunications Institute, 95% of the population benefits nowadays from digital terrestrial television (DTT).
read article
