services | Geo-Mexico, the geography of Mexico

Global survey shows Mexico emerging as the country with the most future business leaders

Sep 182014

Which countries have the most promising crops of leaders coming up through the ranks today, and where in the world are there more young people likely to develop into business leaders tomorrow? And how can leadership be measured at all? SHL, a U.K.-based talent management consulting firm, released a study in 2012 that aims to provide answers to those questions.

SHL is a giant in the world of employee assessments, with more than 10,000 clients in over 100 countries. It offers services to consultancies like Deloitte and KPMG, multinationals like Unilever and organizations like the United Nations and the European Personnel Selection Office.

Ranking	Effective Leaders Today		Potential Leaders of Tomorrow		Ranking change between leaders for today and leaders for tomorrow
1-25	Country	%	Country	%	↑or↓
1	Hong Kong	14%	Mexico	54%	21↑
2	Germany	13%	Turkey	50%	16↑
3	United Kingdom	10%	Egypt	44%	New entry
4	Australia ∞	10%	Switzerland	43%	2↑
5	United States	10%	Brazil	42%	19↑
6	Switzerland	10%	India	41%	New entry
7	Canada	10%	Italy	41%	10↑
8	Japan∞	9%	United States	41%	3↓
9	Singapore ∞	9%	Germany	40%	7↓
10	New Zealand ∞	8%	Netherlands	40%	New entry
11	Sweden	7%	Taiwan	39%	1↑
12	Taiwan ∞	7%	United Arab Emirates	39%	9↑
13	France∞	7%	Denmark	39%	10↑
14	Thailand	7%	Sweden	37%	3↓
15	Finland ∞	7%	Portugal	37%	New entry
16	Belgium ∞	7%	Russia	37%	New entry
17	Spain	6%	Spain	37%	No change
18	Turkey	6%	Ireland	37%	New entry
19	Italy	6%	Indonesia	37%	New entry
20	South Africa ∞	6%	China (Hong Kong)	37%	19↓
21	United Arab Emirates	6%	United Kingdom	37%	18↓
22	Mexico	6%	Norway	36%	3↑
23	Denmark	5%	Poland	35%	New entry
24	Brazil	5%	Canada	35%	16↓
25	Norway	5%	China (Mainland)	34%	New entry

∞ Indicates those counties ranked in the top 25 leaders today that fall out of the top 25 for leadership potential tomorrow

“New entry” = countries not ranked in the top 25 today but listed in the top 25 for leadership potential tomorrow

This year, executives at SHL decided to mine data from past employee assessments and try to shed some light on the leadership potential in the many countries where it works. The SHL data came from 1.05 million client surveys gathered between 2006 and 2011. It focused on eight different skill areas to measure leadership capability: initiating activity and deciding, supporting and cooperating, interacting with and presenting to others, analyzing and interpreting data, creating and conceptualizing ideas, organizing and executing plans, adapting and coping with others, and finally, performing and achieving.

In September 2012, SHL published a list of the countries it believes have the greatest percentage of effective leaders, and those that it sees as most likely to develop leaders within the next three to five years. The list of current leaders may not be that surprising. The report ranks the country with the most leaders today as Hong Kong (treated as a separate country, though it is a special administrative region of mainland China), followed by Germany, the U.K., Australia, U.S.A., Canada and Switzerland.

The country that emerges as that with the most future leaders is… Mexico. According to SHL, Mexico’s “market is becoming more international and its leaders are strengthening in several different categories.”

This is an interesting analysis, but only time will tell whether or not it holds much validity!

How innovative is Mexico compared to other countries?

Other 1 Response »

Nov 022013

Innovation is an important ingredient of economic growth, especially growth in the decades ahead. While most people know what innovation is, it is not an easy concept to measure. Fortunately three different groups have attempted to measure it and compare countries on their “innovativeness”. All three rely on such measures as research and development, number of patents, number of researchers per person, manufacturing, and the percentage of college graduates with science and engineering degrees. However, the number and character of the specific individual variables they use are quite different. As a result their international rankings can be very different. The three approaches are briefly discussed below.

1. Bloomberg’s “Global Innovation Quotient” is based on R&D intensity (20%); manufacturing capability (10%); researcher concentration (20%); productivity (20%); High-tech density (20%); patent activity (5%) and tertiary (education) efficiency (5%). [For more details, see Global Innovation Index (pdf)]

Bloomberg’s “Global Innovation Quotient”, for 96 countries, ranked Mexico ranked in 2012 as 46^th, just behind Chile (41^st) and Argentina (43^rd), but ahead of Brazil (57^th) and Venezuela (62^nd). Other notable countries ranked as follows: Finland (1^st), Singapore (2^nd), USA (7^th), Switzerland (8^th), Canada (19^th), Russia (22^nd), Israel (29^th) and China (32^nd) and Indonesia (64^th).

2. In 2009, a “Global Innovation Index” was produced by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and The Manufacturing Institute (MI). In March 2009, the Global Innovation Index ranked Mexico 57^th. For comparison, it had Chile at 37^th, Argentina at 92^nd, Brazil at 72^nd, and Venezuela at 108th.

These rankings are significantly higher than the Bloomberg rankings above because this index included more countries which pushed the Latin American countries lower down on the ranking list. But there are other important differences in how innovativeness was measured in the two studies. Compare the following rankings with the ones in paragraph above: Finland (7^th), Singapore (1^st), Switzerland (3^rd), USA (8^th), Canada (14^th), Russia (49^th), (Israel 16^th), China (27^th) and Indonesia (71^st).

3. The third index, confusingly also called the “Global Innovation Index”, is published jointly by Cornell University, INSEAD (The Business School of the World) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

This very complicated index is based on six pillars (Institutions, human and capital research, infrastructure, market sophistication, business sophistication, knowledge and technological outputs and creative outputs.), each with sub-pillars, and a total of 84 indicators. Of the 134 countries analyzed in 2012, Mexico ranked 79^th, way behind Chile (39^th) also lagging behind Brazil (58^th) and Argentina (70^th), but way ahead of Venezuela (118^th). This complex index’s rankings are different from but generally align with the two other indices: Finland (4^th), Singapore (3^rd), USA (10^th), Switzerland (1^st), Canada (12^th), Russia (51^st), Israel (17^th) China (34^th) and Indonesia (100^th).

Conclusion

These three indices appear to tell us that Mexico is relatively weak when it comes to innovativeness. Mexico, along with Brazil and India, appears to lag behind other major emerging economies such as China, Russia, South Africa and Thailand. This is a bit surprising considering that Mexico is a world leader in the export of smart phones, flat panel TVs, automobiles and appliances. Apparently these exports are manufactured in Mexico but the innovations that go into their designs mostly come from elsewhere.

Though Mexico is graduating thousands of engineers and science majors, these are either not yet innovating or are finding employment in other countries. If Mexico is to compete in future world trade, it would do well to take steps now to improve its innovativeness.

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Access to services is worst in the smallest rural localities of Mexico

Updates to Geo-Mexico Comments Off

May 102011

Access to services such as schools, public transport or the internet are better in cities than in rural areas (localities in Mexico with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants). However some rural areas have far better access than others. Perhaps not surprisingly, the number of inhabitants of a rural locality is directly related to its access to services.

The 2010 census indicates that 26.0 million Mexicans (about 23.2% of the population) live in rural areas. A total of 9.0 million live in Mexico’s 5,921 large rural communities (those with 1000–2499 inhabitants) compared to 11.3 million living in the 22,852 mid-sized rural localities (250–999 people) and 5.7 million in the 159,820 small rural settlements (fewer than 250 residents). The average population in the last group is only 36 inhabitants indicating that many Mexicans live in very tiny communities.

The percentage of communities with access to a health center or clinic is 74.9% for the large rural areas, 50.7% for the mid-sized, and only 37.9% for the small rural areas. The percentages for access to either a secondary school or telesecundaria (Mexico’s satellite-fed secondary schools, see Geo-Mexico, page 126) also differ with the size of the community: 79.6%, 51.5% and 27.0%, respectively. Though these percentages are far lower than those for larger, urban communities, they have improved very significantly. The census indicates that rural areas are catching up with the rest of Mexico, especially with respect to education, life expectancy and fertility, three very important, inter-related variables.

In turn, this suggests that government programs such as Oportunidades are achieving something positive in some areas beyond poverty reduction.

The network of roads providing access to rural villages has improved significantly. 81.2% of the smallest localities now are connected by road, compared to 96.7% for the mid-sized and 98.3% for the large rural areas. However, these data indicate that almost 31,000 rural Mexican communities are still not accessible by road. Only 63.5% of the small rural villages are served by public transport, compared to 74.6% of the mid-sixed and 89.3% of the large rural localities. A total of almost 107,000 rural communities do not have any public transport and are consequently quite isolated. This isolation is a very serious constraint to their economic opportunities and quality of life. The people who live in communities without access to a paved road are among Mexico’s poorest; fully 88% are classified as “very marginalized” (see Geo-Mexico, page 184).

Internet access is only beginning to penetrate into rural areas. Only 3% of the smallest rural villages have public access to the internet (via school, cybercafé, etc.). About four times as many (11%) of mid-sized rural localities have public internet access. Almost half (45.6%) of the large rural communities have public internet access compared to 74.3% of larger communities between 2500 and 4999 inhabitants. Current trends suggest that by 2020, virtually all Mexicans will have some type of internet access, perhaps by cell phone.