By José Ángel de la Paz

EGADE Business School professors, in collaboration with other experts and leaders from different industries, have presented a new book with diverse methodologies, case studies and tools to contribute to the transformation of innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging markets in Latin America.

The book, entitled "Innovation and Entrepreneurship: A New Mindset for Emerging Markets," is published by Emerald and was presented on November 5th, 2019 at the main campus of the EGADE Business School in Monterrey.

Martha Corrales, a professor at EGADE Business School and editor of the book, commented that the authors involved observe social and technological megatrends to explore new business opportunities, and design strategies with innovative and sustainable models that include viability, convenience and feasibility perspectives in the creation of personal, economic, pragmatic and social value.

"This is a book written and aimed at an audience of entrepreneurs and innovators, and particularly those entrepreneurs in Latin America who seek to analyze and offer innovative solutions," she said.

The book, explained Corrales, includes business cases of companies such as Axtel, Naranya, Vector, Agua Fria, ECITON Global, Incuba Social and Ashoka, and was designed to support the syllabus of the “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” course that is part of the EGADE Business School’s MBA program.

EGADE Business School professors Félix Cárdenas, Claudia Ramos, José Manuel Saiz, Mario Félix Saldaña and Francisco Layrisse are just some of the authors who wrote parts of this 12-chapter book.

Participating in the presentation of the book were: Hugo Garza Medina, Vice President of Strategic Entrepreneurship Projects at Tecnológico de Monterrey; Rolando Zubirán, CEO of Axtel; Arturo Galván, founder and CEO of Naranya; Zita Horváth, partner of Leal Isla & Horváth; Mauricio Ballesteros, Banregio’s Director of New Business Development; and Félix Cárdenas, Director of the Center for Innovation and Corporate Entrepreneurship at EGADE Business School.

By José Ángel de la Paz

Smart cities are not those with more technology, but those that use it as a tool for driving sustainable development and for improving the quality of life of its inhabitants.

These were the assertions of the public-sector participants who had been invited to participate in the panel "The next smart cities in Nuevo León", organized by the Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIEC) of EGADE Business School and Singularity University, Monterrey Chapter.

The event was  moderated by Dr. Félix Cárdenas, CIEC director, and enjoyed contributions by Miguel Treviño and Héctor Castillo, mayors of San Pedro Garza García and Santa Catarina, respectively, as well as Deputy Juan Carlos Ruiz, president of the Nuevo León State Congress.

The mayors talked about the programs they are implementing to reach efficient solutions to the problems in their respective cities and reflected on the scope of smart cities.

A smart city, Treviño stated, makes its own data- and evidence-based decisions to capitalize the talent of its citizens, is preventive rather than reactive, measuring and enhancing performance.

"We commonly think of technology in terms of gadgets, but what’s most important is making the best use of the data we have. How to serve citizens better is more important than gadgets," said the San Pedro mayor.

Castillo considered that transparency and civic participation are fundamental for smart cities.

"The cities of tomorrow should be built with vision; smart cities facilitate addressing and responding to the needs of citizens," said the mayor of Santa Catarina.

Ruiz warned that even though technology has progressed, legislators are yet to reach agreements regarding mobility, thereby affecting the development of smart cities.

Other participants in the event included Jenaro Martínez, director of Innovation and Strategic Alliances at Alestra, who explained the company’s initiatives to foment the creation of smart cities.

With information from El Norte and El Horizonte.

By José Ángel de la Paz

The changes required in organizational structures to support equal opportunities between men and women, and to maintain a work-life balance were discussed at the Work-Life Balance Forum 2019.

In the second edition of the forum, organized by EGADE Business School and the Mexican Institute of Finance Executives (IMEF), diverse industry leaders addressed the challenges of professional development, in which women come up against more obstacles than men.

In her conference “Women of steel: a key factor for your career”, Silvia Pieretti, Global Director of Talent Management at Ternium, asserted that the participation of women executives in companies is even lower in Latin America.

For example, she mentioned that at Ternium only 3% of executive positions are held by women, while women represent only 10% of managers and 15% of middle management.

“In October 2018, the company launched its diversity and inclusion policy and, today, our efforts have gone from strength to strength in this area.  My message is that women have to be persistent and work to construct in some way our development, to be where we want to be in the organization,” she said.

To grow within the company, Pieretti commented, women might find the following four basic rules helpful:

• Occupy the space with prominence. Don’t underestimate your capacity.
• Maintain a holistic approach and vision at the same time.
• Be open and agile to learn with a new mindset.
• Wait for the right moment (Kairos) to make important decisions.

HOW TO CHART A SUCCESSFUL CAREER

The forum included the panel “How to chart a successful career”, moderated by Inés Sáenz, Dean of the School of Humanities and Education at Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Panelists addressed the challenge of increasing the balance of women’s presence in management positions and on company boards, together with opportunities to access these levels.

María Concepción del Alto, Director of the Master in Finance at EGADE Business School in Monterrey, highlighted the commitment that devolves on organizations to foster an equitable life-work balance, so that a successful woman with a promising career is not forced to resign when the conditions for continuing to work cannot be found, for example, being a mother.

“These policies should emerge at the top of the organization, in a strong, categorical, decisive way to change this organizational culture and support men and women equally; it’s a change that is happening, if slowly, but fortunately we can now see it,” she said.

Jessica Roldán, Economic Analysis Director at Casa de Bolsa Finamex, agreed about the need to change the organizational culture so that recognition is based on results and efficiencies, rather than in-person time spent at work.

Sanjuana Herrera, Managing Director at Banregio, believes that drive and determination in decision making are the best tools for women to reach a leadership position.

Moreover, Claudia Fresnillo, Human Resources Director at Caterpillar, underscored the importance of women, not just men, participating in networking outside the company.

“Women aren’t very good at networking, perhaps because of our desire to go home, while, in contrast, it comes naturally to men; we have to try harder, because, in this environment, business is discussed and decisions are made,” she claimed.

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AND PERSONAL PURPOSE

In his conference “Organizational commitment to the wellbeing of their human capital”, Rogelio Segovia, Vice-President of Human Resources for Latin America at  CHRISTUS Health, addressed the responsibility of companies.

"Collaborators, be they men or women, fathers or mothers, cannot achieve wellbeing as individuals without the organization’s commitment to offering flexible hours or remote work," he explained.

In addition, Leopoldo Cedillo, CEO of Metalsa, offered the conference “The Answer is Within”, in which he urged attendees to identify their personal stakeholders.

“Work is just one of your stakeholders, but not the main one. Make your purpose clear to transcend and be happy," he said.

With information from Milenio and El Norte

By José Ángel de la Paz

An article by Federico Trigos, research professor at EGADE Business School and expert in Business Analytics, was included in a special edition of the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR), a high-impact scientific publication (Q1).

The paper “About tooling capacity for the vulcanising planning decision problem to improve strategic business profit” was written in collaboration with Eduardo López, consulting director at NCA Europa.

The article, Trigos explained, contributes to optimizing both the quotation and production planning of an essential component of every internal combustion system, the rubber curved hose, used in all aerospace, marine and land liquid fuel engines. 

“We began our research after asking ourselves how we could optimize quotations for new platforms, including tooling, and the production of this type of manufacturing cells.”

“We couldn’t find any articles in the scientific literature that address this problem, and developed an algorithm to solve it,” explained the member of the National System of Researchers and the Mexican Academy of Science.

This research was first presented in October 2017 in the seventh edition of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Systems Management (IESM) 2017, held in Saarbrucken, Germany.

Afterwards, the work by Trigos and López was selected to form part of an IJPR special edition with the most outstanding papers from this academic event, which brought together researchers from all over the world to discuss Industry 4.0 trends and challenges.

After receiving this distinction, the authors developed an extended version of their investigation, which was published in September this year.

As background information, Trigos and López published the paper “A vulcanising decision planning as a particular one-dimensional cutting stock problem with limited part-related tooling in make-to-order industrial environments”, in 2016.

Find out more about their latest work here.

By José Ángel de la Paz

EGADE Business School presented, for the second occasion, the INC Corporate Innovation & Growth Forum, at INCmty entrepreneurship festival.

The program, exclusively for large corporations, included talks and discussion panels with national and international experts in artificial intelligence (AI), data science, digital transformation and corporate entrepreneurship.

In addition, the forum included the workshop “Creating an innovation thesis for growth”, led by Dan Toma, cofounder of the consulting firm Outcome. 

“The innovation thesis is a mechanism in a system. It won’t produce results on its own. Its strategy is based on assumptions, which is why the assumption needs to be validated before technology. And it’s not just a top-down process; everyone should participate if everyone is expected to support the strategy,” expressed the also coauthor of the book The Corporate Startup.

It's been a great week at the largest innovation & startups festival in Latin America, IMCmty. Workshop for corporate leaders on innovation strategy and keynote for entrepreneurs on the mindset you need to have when starting up. #innovation #startups #KeynoteSpeaker pic.twitter.com/35c8HX6Dk5

— Dan Toma (@danto_ma) November 11, 2019

Moreover, Juan Pablo Llamas, Director of Analytics and Big Data at Accenture in Mexico, offered the conference “Opportunities and challenges in an era of disruption: a framework for responsible artificial intelligence”.

“Neither organizations nor individuals are ready for artificial intelligence. Businesses need to train their collaborators properly, both technically and ethically, so they can leverage the benefits of artificial intelligence,” Llamas explained.

During the event the EGADExEd Board of Directors Executive Program was presented, together with the book Innovation and Entrepreneurship: A New Mindset for Emerging Markets, authored by EGADE Business School faculty.

The forum was inaugurated by Hugo Garza Medina, Vice-President of Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Strategic Entrepreneurship Projects.

This edition was organized with the support of Accenture and the Tec Eugenio Garza Lagüera Entrepreneurship Institute.

It’s time to get serious about artificial intelligence: Nir Kaldero

“Intelligent machines are now a reality and bring the greatest transformational impact to business innovation. If you are a business leader, you must guarantee the survival of your organization,” asserted Nir Kaldero, the forum’s keynote speaker.

The Head of Data Science at Galvanize, a firm that specializes in technology education, commented that today’s most innovative companies, such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Alibaba and Netflix, count on the use of data science and machine learning to guide processes and add value to the user experience.

"The future of business innovation has an artificial intelligence component at the very core of its structure,” Kaldero affirmed in his conference “Operationalizing AI and measuring its ROI”.

The author of the book Data Science for Executives indicated that a plan for introducing AI implies having, first of all, a clear strategy for making the most of data, based on the business objectives.  

He added that the human component and culture should also play a fundamental role in AI adoption.

Leaders, he explained, create habits and encourage employees to look at data in decision-making processes, bringing together non-technical and technical teams to obtain a return on investment.

“Technology truly offers a variety of marvelous tools, but it’s people who change the world, especially when we talk about the ROI behind artificial intelligence,” Kaldero concluded.

By José Ángel de la Paz

A sustainable plastics industry can be achieved through disruptive, systemic and circular innovation, claimed industry experts and EGADE Business School faculty at the INCmty entrepreneurship festival.

In the panel “Can plastics be transformed to become sustainable? A circular economy proposal”, Ruy Pérez, Jaime Cámara, Eduardo Aguiñaga and Carlos Scheel discussed the circular economy, an eco-friendly system that aims to capitalize on resources to reduce, recycle and reuse all types of waste, give them a second life and putting them back on the market in a new form.

The examples they gave were PetStar and its shareholder Arca Continental, companies that form part of the Mexican Coca-Cola Industry (IMCC) and signatories of the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment formulated by the Ellen McArthur Foundation, which champions a significant increase in the quantities of plastics that are reused and converted into new packaging or goods.

PetStar recycles 3.1 billion PET bottles per year and converts them into recycled food grade resin, which is reused by Arca Continental and IMCC bottlers who have joined Coca-Cola's global commitment to recover 100% of its packaging and use at least 50% recycled material in its bottles by 2030.

“The opportunity for entrepreneurial undertakings based on waste is as huge as the generation of the same,” assured Ruy Pérez, Corporate Sustainability Manager at Arca Continental.

“Endeavor to forge multidisciplinary alliances; this is an excellent time to present proposals for new circular business models. The main challenge is to create solutions without generating bigger issues for the planet,” he told the audience of entrepreneurs.

Jaime Cámara, founder and CEO of PetStar, believes that recycling and reusing plastics serves as an example to inspire other industries to move towards a circular economy, since there are many other materials that can be recovered.

“The proposal to ban plastics does not count unexpected costs. The problem should be analyzed holistically. The challenge of waste management is everyone’s responsibility - the private sector, consumers and governments. Global businesses have already committed to incorporating recycled materials in their production,” said Jaime Cámara, who is also the director of Avangard Mexico.

Eduardo Aguiñaga, national director of the Master in Business Management program at EGADE Business School, pointed out that for a company to become sustainable, it not only needs to redefine its business model, but also completely transform its culture and bring each and every employee into line with that vision.

“The problem can’t be solved in landfills. Waste needs to be recovered; there are so many valuable products that nobody is exploiting. The circular economy takes this waste and returns it to the value chain,” added the Circular Economy leader at Heineken México.

Panel moderator, Carlos Scheel, EGADE Business School professor emeritus, defined the circular economy as an individual who identifies connections that are not visible at first sight and has the capacity to analyze the business model holistically to reassess and convert waste into a new product.

“A circular economy implies breaking several paradigms in order to move away from the linear economic model of ‘take, make, dispose’, creating new, profitable business models that will have a positive impact on society and nature. We need to think about systems rather than products,” Scheel concluded.

The Binational Node for Health Innovation (NoBi Health) participated with two panels in the INCmty entrepreneurship festival, presenting the six projects selected in NoBi Health 2019 and discussing the best practices learned during the two editions of the program.

In an interview, some of the participating leaders, such as Verónica Ponce (Team 241), Enrique Villalobos (Team 246) and Larisa Uribe (Team 259), shared testimonies on their experience in the program.

Moreover, the NoBi Health leaders recognized the participants’ professionalism and the richness of their contributions, while reflecting on the program’s continuity and the future impact of the projects that are underway.  

“The objective of researchers’ gaining a more market-oriented mindset and having business ideas with an added value was accomplished, while the entrepreneurial leaders brought them closer to technology, a very rich industry,” stated Fernando Moya, NoBi Health leader and national director of the Academic Department of Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation of EGADE Business School.

Servando Aguirre, leader of NoBi North, commented, “Rather than discussing the particular success of the projects, I would like to highlight the lessons learned by researchers and entrepreneurial leaders on communicating the value of their technology to the market. Moving to another language isn’t easy, so one of the most important successes is that it helps entrepreneurial leaders to communicate better.” 

José Ernesto Amorós, national director of Doctoral Programs and co-leader of the Strategic Focus Research Group in Entrepreneurship and Leadership at EGADE Business School, emphasized two aspects of the program.

“The first has to do with the process experienced by all the teams, particularly in relation to changing scientists’ mindset and the adoption of an entrepreneurial culture. The second was the success of adopting a program originating from the United States, while understanding the idiosyncrasy of Mexican scientific culture,” he said.

Luis Alfonso Quero, in his role as an instructor, reflected on the achievements of the program beyond specific projects.

“The definition of success is to endeavor to challenge scientists’ belief system, disassociated from entrepreneurship. In these seven weeks, participants were able to develop fundamental social skills so as to begin to conceive entrepreneurship, based on commercial potential,” he said.

The Binational Node for Health Innovation seeks to impact the generation of startups and the application of scientific research in Mexico, fostering in researchers a practical approach oriented towards innovation and the solution of social issues.

By José Ángel de la Paz

Entrepreneurs need to develop competencies to put their business ideas into practice and be successful, claimed Ignacio de la Vega at INCmty 2019.

"Passion is innate, but capacities are learned; you have to work hard to be an entrepreneur and being trained offers a competitive advantage,” said the dean of EGADE Business School and the Undergraduate Business School of Tecnológico de Monterrey.

During the panel “Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made?”, De la Vega and other experts exchanged their perspectives of the entrepreneurial mindset and the role played by education in entrepreneurship.

Educators, he added, are responsible for developing an entrepreneurial vision based on values and educating students to create shared value and, through businesses, to transform society.

“We have helped entrepreneurs to dream big, giving them tools, advice and financing. But, we haven’t emphasized enough that not everything goes. Social responsibility should always be more valuable than the unicorn," De la Vega stated.

Mario Adrián Flores, vice-president of the Northern Region of Tec de Monterrey, and Ben Constantini, cofounder and CEO of Startup Sesame, also participated in the panel.

"Human beings are constantly seeking to be. If someone wants to be an entrepreneur, they can accomplish it if they are in an appropriate system and develop their skills,” Flores coincided.

Moreover, Constantini also acknowledged the importance of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, underscoring the importance of events such as INCmty, which help entrepreneurs to realize whether or not their idea is valuable.

"Mexico is a nation of entrepreneurs, with practically one business per family; the environment trains, educates and drives entrepreneurship,” assured the director of the global network of technological events present in 20 countries.

De la Vega highlighted the set of factors and actors who make the entrepreneurial ecosystem work effectively.

“Well-trained talent, leaders and entrepreneurial teams, educators, investors, public policies that favor investment in research and development; success is collective,” he said.

The panel was moderated by Purificación Lucena, editor of the Business section of Grupo Expansión.

Before starting, the dean presented the series of six Innovation and Entrepreneurship MOOCs from the MicroMasters program of EGADE Business School, offered in collaboration with edX.