That's a stupid article. India's not competing with Mexico for investments. Our primary competition for investments & markets are within our region. It's Asia & Africa followed by Europe & Americas in that order .
The demand for engineers in the high-tech industry has brought large numbers of Indians to the city of Guadalajara. Beyond the benefits that their presence brings to the organizations in which they work, their stay in the city is an opportunity to see each other from another cultural perspective.
The people of Guadalajara are kind and supportive. Its road culture is surprising, especially its respect for pedestrians. Furthermore, the liberal nature of its society is notable. Don't you believe it? Ask Sreekanth, Sai Prasad and Sandeep.
These three young Indians came to Guadalajara to work in information technology companies—mainly Tata Consultancy Services and, to a lesser extent, IGATE—and have joined the life of the city.
Of them, Sreekanth is the newcomer. He's only been in town for two weeks. This is his first work trip and he is just settling in to a land he had only heard about because of its tequila and its food.
“I thought it was a good country, I was happy to come,” he says, sitting on the couch in the house he shares with four other colleagues in Zapopan. “I like the atmosphere, the people are very good; “I like interacting with people, the nature of people and their culture.”
But the learning process is mutual. The main reason why their companies send these young people to Mexico is precisely so that they help with the development of their Mexican counterparts.
“In this case, not only Indians arrive, Europeans also arrive and Americans arrive, but the most important thing is that they help develop talent here in Mexico,” explains the president of the Western headquarters of the National Chamber of the Electronics and Technology Industry. of Information, César Castro.
“We have to give the kids [from Mexico] more experience, we have to give them more support, and I think the people who are arriving bring the experience.”
In this way, the aim is to reproduce a process that already occurred in the electronic manufacturing industry, whose companies were originally developed by foreign managers, mainly American.
“Engineers or certain executive levels arrive, they stay for one or two years; So, they give the know-how to people, and many directors are already Mexican, or technicians are already Mexican.” However, this does not exempt the entity from the urgency of formulating parallel strategies to create the engineering cadres that projects in the country require, recognizes the industry representative.
One in four Mexican higher education students studies an engineering and technology degree, according to the Ministry of Public Education. Furthermore, the growth in enrollment in this type of studies from the 2000-2001 to 2013-2014 school year (65 percent) has barely been less than that of the total number of bachelor's degrees (68 percent).
Even so, 24 percent of engineering courses in this school year is significantly lower than the 37 percent of economic-administrative courses, which implies that the surprise is that there are companies that want to come to a country where there are not enough human resources. , considered Alonso Castillo Pérez, director of the Electronics and Computing Division of the University Center of Exact Sciences and Engineering (CUCEI) of the UdeG. “We do not have the great production of engineers in India: it is not at all strange that these companies [software developers] have to supply themselves from there.”
Although the proportion of engineers seems high, it is still dominated by traditional engineering—such as industrial, civil, and mechanical—and not by those that focus on high technology. The diagnosis made by Castillo Pérez is very clear in the number of applicants to enter the UdeG in the 2014 “B” calendar: of the 5,271 who sought to enter the cucei, only 611 wanted to do so in Computer Engineering; 244 to Communications and Electronics and 308 to IT. In contrast, in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, 4,452 wanted to enter Medicine; 2 thousand 36 to Law; 1,465 to Nursing; 1,256 to Psychology; 1,193 to Accounting and 1,021 to Administration.
In this phenomenon, the fear of mathematics is fundamental. Unfortunately, in Mexico it continues to be taught in an absurd way, as a series of problems to be solved. On the contrary, it must be shown as the modern science that it is, so that students know its true importance. “If mathematics has not made a boy feel intelligent, he has not made him feel valuable, how can you ask him to like it?”
Despite everything, Palacios considers that the generation of engineers in Jalisco is a competitive advantage that continues to be an attraction for investments. In fact, in November he plans to lead a tour to India to visit high-tech companies.
Indians in Guadalajara High technology
In the academic's opinion, the other problem is bilingualism, an ideal that has never been fulfilled in Mexico. José Palacios, Secretary of Economic Development of Jalisco, agrees with this: “What we are asking of all universities is that it is very important, especially in engineering, that they have at least the English language and, if they are polyglot, even better. ”.
“What we are doing is trying to row against the current: going to high schools to convince students, especially women; make bilingual educational centers. “It is quite a struggle,” he noted. Meanwhile, Tata Consultancy Group (TCS) is doing the same to generate its tables. The most important software services company in India, and one of the ten largest in the world, completed its first decade of operations in Mexico last year.
Four years after opening its offices in Mexico City, it inaugurated its Global Delivery Center in Guadalajara in 2007 and, a couple of years later, in Querétaro. Currently it already has two facilities in the capital of Guadalajara.
“Many factors make Mexico a very important link in tcs' expansion strategy in the region; among them, the proximity in distance and time zones with the United States, political and economic stability, and a high level of its university professionals,” he reads.
According to journalistic reports published in El Economista and El Informador, this year the company has around five thousand people in the three cities—mostly Mexicans and half in Guadalajara—and estimates that by 2015 they may reach seven thousand.
IGATE Global Solutions Mexico, the other Indian company in the sector with operations in Guadalajara, employs fifty people in its facilities in Guadalajara, from which it offers its services to its clients in North America.
“It is Tata's strategy, just as it has been with other international companies, to bring people who are used to a specific work environment, to the way they work, and bring them when they have a new plant, because they normally know the internal procedures. and how to do things, especially since we are talking about technical aspects,” says José de Jesús Urzúa, professor in the International Business area of the University Center for Economic and Administrative Sciences of the University of Guadalajara.
“It is easier to work with people who know and are used to a certain climate and, later, once trained, people from another country join this, than to train and train people in very specific things, especially in these intangible aspects, such as work cultures.”
But the majority of Indians who come to the country will not even reach the four years required for the Mexican authorities to grant permanent residence, says Rocío Alejandra Cortés Dueñas, deputy director of Migration Regulation of the Jalisco delegation of the National Migration Institute.
“Perhaps, if they are very young families who do not yet have children, they may have Mexican children who will perhaps create other types of roots in the country, but the cases are few. They are families that already enter as such, little children, perhaps; But the same jobs generate opportunities for them in other countries and they do not reach the four years that we ask for as a minimum to generate a permanent residence,” she says.
“In reality, due to the type of employment, what we have seen is that it is an average of young families, but they are already finished, so to speak: they already have two children, normally, and they are not very extended families. There are many who come at a younger age, who come single.”
Indians in Guadalajara High technology On their days off, Joseph and his wife usually meet in a park with a group of friends of different nationalities to play volleyball.
Different but equal
“Relations between India and Mexico have always been friendly, warm and cordial, as they are characterized by mutual understanding, the growth of bilateral trade and comprehensive cooperation,” reads the website of the Indian Embassy in Mexico.
“Both are large emerging economies, with similar priorities and limitations in social and economic development; Likewise, they have democratic, secular and pluralistic systems, and they also share a vision of the world in general.”
But there are differences. For example, it is estimated that in Mexico, in July 2014, there were just over 120 million inhabitants, which puts the country in 12th place in this area in the world; India occupies second place, only below China, with more than 1,236 million people. That is, in a territory that is 67 percent larger than Mexico, ten times more people live.
The average age in both countries is very similar, and is around 27 years, although life expectancy is higher in Mexico, with 75.4 years compared to 67.8 for Indians, according to the CIA data book.
Another similarity is that both are countries that heavily support their economies on remittances sent by citizens who have emigrated. According to the World Bank, last year money transfers to the developing world would increase by 6.3 percent to reach 414 billion dollars and in 2016 they would reach 540 billion.
India and China represent almost a third of total transfers to developing countries. The main recipients of officially recorded remittances in 2013 are India (with approximately 71 billion), China (60 billion), the Philippines (26 billion), Mexico (22 billion), Nigeria (21 billion) and Egypt (20 billion). Other important recipient countries are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Ukraine.
In economic matters there are important differences: the growth of the Indian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in previous years has even exceeded 10 percent, as in 2010; although in 2012 it was 4.7 percent. In Mexico it grew 5.1 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively in those years, according to the World Bank.
"It is evident that they have many problems, they do not deny them, but with these three orientations of their goals - tolerance, democracy and education -, right now India has more or less 1.2 billion inhabitants and more than 450 million are middle class. With these three axes of work, they brought the middle class forward,” says Xavier Orendain Martínez Gallardo, honorary consul of India in Guadalajara.
And although the average school age expectation is one year longer in Mexico (13 years of studies) than in India (12 years), the approach to generating engineers that has occurred in that nation has become an example for the world. “Indians have set a goal in education, which is excellence, especially in engineering; "You don't see many lawyers, you don't see many administrators: India is the country that trains the most engineers per year."
The report “Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development”, published in 2010 by UNESCO, coincides with this vision: “In recent years, India has registered GDP growth of between 8 and 9 percent, mainly due to information technologies,” the text reads.
Indians in Guadalajara High technology
“This may correlate with the increasing availability of a young and confident talent pool. From being an importer of various goods and recipient of aid, India has become an exporter of finished goods and services, and has offered support to less developed nations. Globalization has opened up opportunities for India, such as outsourcing of IT and engineering services within the country.” Inside and outside the country, Tata and IGATE are proof of this. But the similarities go beyond needs and economic situations, says researcher Urzúa. “We have some very things in common between Mexican food and Indian food, which wouldn't create such a strong clash, culturally, at the end of the day: tropical fruits, the climate, the spices, the chili.”
“In general, Indians and Mexicans are more similar than it seems at first glance. Our worldview, our way of seeing life, family, religion - even if they are different religions -, food, respect for adults, the way we have fun, even jokes; "We Indians and Mexicans are much more similar than, say, Mexicans and Americans," agrees Orendain Martínez Gallardo.
With the exception of the language - in fact, the three of them recommended that their countrymen learn the basics of Spanish before coming to Mexico -, Sreekanth, Sai Prasad and Sandeep did not notice a great culture shock either, although they did find themselves surprised by two situations: Sandeep says that The people from Guadalajara do not like to be packed in the truck, something they are used to. The other custom that strongly caught their attention is put on the table by Sai Prasad: due to the traditions of her country, Indian women usually cover practically their entire bodies, although some do not agree.
“In India you have to follow some particular traditions (…), here there is more freedom, that is, in India this does not happen,” she explains. When I tell them that it is strange that they point out that this is a liberal society because of the way the people from Guadalajara dress, since Guadalajara has a reputation for being a conservative place, they all laugh: “So, what will the people of Mexico City be like?” ?”
Meanwhile, these young people have plans to enjoy the country: they want to go to Cancún, Puerto Vallarta and other beaches; continue admiring the beautiful Mexican women, escape to the nightlife that the city offers, get to know the culture, learn more Spanish - Sreekanth asks about schools for foreigners - and, even, in the case of Sandeep, take advantage of an offer of extreme sports and ecotourism which he will not have when he returns to his country.
At the end of the interviews, they are the ones who ask: Is the city unsafe? What dishes do I recommend? Is this the first time I'm talking to people from India? That I thought?
I tell them that I believe that knowledge of cultures can be enriching for everyone, and I am left wishing that someday we will be the liberal, supportive and civilized citizens that these young people who come from the other side of the world see. m.
Los tapatíos son amables y solidarios. Sorprende su cultura vial, sobre todo el respeto al peatón. Además, lo liberal de su sociedad es destacable. ¿No lo cree? Pregúntele a Sreekanth, Sai Prasad y Sandeep. Estos tres jóvenes indios llegaron a Guadalajara para trabajar en las empresas de...
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