Today's post was going to be about Nafta and its effect on IT services, but I'm still waiting to hear back from Ross Perot, famous Nafta opponent but more importantly former owner of a little IT services company called EDS. So instead I'll talk about another topic that came up during a recent discussion about Nafta: personal safety in Mexico.
It's no news that most Americans view Mexico through the glossy prisms of TV news and action movies. We tend to visualize Mexican towns as crawling with clones of Danny Trejo, the actor from Machete and Once Upon a Time in Mexico who looks like the prototype for the movie version of the scary below-the-border hitman. But unlike most Americans, I've had the good fortune to visit Mexico many times, and never once was accosted by anyone who looked like Machete, or was even carrying one.
Maybe I was just lucky. But I think it was really that the facts were on my side. Some facts indicate that there are indeed some danger zones in Mexico where you do not want to be sourcing your IT or BPO projects. But we all know there are places like that in the U.S., too.
I consulted Luke Bujarski, research analyst extraordinaire for NextCoast Media, the company that operates NearshoreAmericas. He has collected tons of data on safety perceptions and crime rates that would open some eyes. To wit:
The homicide rate — one of the most significant reflections of a country's level of personal security — is lower in Mexico than in Russia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, and a bunch of other places. Guadalajara's homicide rate is about one-third that of Baltimore. Now, how many of you would think twice before outsourcing to Baltimore?
Luke also has some proprietary data, based on surveys of actual people (including technology professionals), that carries even more weight. Folks who had actually visited the Mexico city being studied said they felt as safe or safer there than they did in their hometown.
It's natural to feel a little apprehensive about any place foreign, and to respond on the basis of impressions picked up here and there. I have to confess to similar reactive thinking at certain times in my life. When someone near and dear to me announced recently that she was moving to Chicago, I was more concerned about the distance than the crime. If she had said she was moving to Guadalajara or Monterrey, I can honestly say I would not have panicked — but initially I would've been more concerned than I was about Chicago.
Funny thing is, Chicago has a higher crime rate than Guadalajara, and parts of Chicago, I know from actual experience, are much more dangerous than most parts of Mexico. I've been to West Chicago, and I left with perceptions that might be inaccurate but they were based on what I had seen, with my own eyes.
And I that's the point I'm driving at: You don't really know a place until you've been there.
And there's another point. This is a complex issue, rife with emotional triggers. Instinct is hugely important when choosing a sourcing location, but the final decision needs to also include facts. As Johnson & Johnson's worldwide outsourcing director Julia Santos put it: While personal safety is always a concern, you should let "data drive the decisions and not perceptions."
Dennis Barker
