Summit Is a Start of ISM®’s Growing Presence in Mexico
Attendees at the ISM® Supply Chain Summit discuss and network outside the meeting room at the Hotel Camino Real Polanco in Mexico City on March 4. (Photo by Jessica Boyd/Institute for Supply Management®)
Perhaps the discussion that most typified what Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) hoped to accomplish with its inaugural Supply Chain Summit in Mexico City three weeks ago wasn’t even on the agenda.
On March 4 — the second day of the event, a partnership between ISM and Supplynity, the Mexico City-based community of procurement professionals in Latin America — many attendees’ phones in the meeting room at the Hotel Camino Real Polanco began buzzing, with emails or texts from their companies’ CFOs or other executives.
U.S. tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada had been announced by the Trump administration. The Summit diverted from the planned agenda, and an impromptu roundtable discussion on the fallout took center stage. Even though many of the levies were walked back over the next two days, attendees left with valuable insights on how to navigate a trade environment that can shift by the day, ISM CEO Thomas W. Derry says.
“It was an opportunity to pivot to something that became top of mind for everybody in that moment, and a chance to take advantage of the aggregate knowledge in the room,” he says. “It was a real-world example of expanding knowledge across a network in a way that really helped people. In a nutshell, that’s what ISM does.”
For ISM and Supplynity, the Summit for senior procurement leaders was one of the first events in a partnership designed to provide skill-building courses, ISM certification opportunities and executive-level events in a country with a growing presence in the global supply chain and economic challenges.
“Mexico is an economic partner for the U.S. that is going to last long term, regardless of political movements,” Supplynity founder Gabriel Rosales says. “The geographical considerations create a strong complementarity between our economies. The fact that ISM is planning to establish a stronger presence in Mexico and have a coordination with our organization to do more things in Latin America is exciting.”
A ‘Thirsty’ Country
The partnership makes sense, Derry says, given that the Mexican market is close to Tempe, Arizona-based ISM. But Mexico is becoming a bigger player in regional supply chains as companies have tried to reduce distances between factories and customers.
The Proximity Premium, a 2024 report by Dutch multinational professional services network KPMG that is based on a survey of senior executives, revealed that over the next three years, Mexico’s share of reshored operations in the Americas is projected to increase from 27 percent to 36 percent.
Derry emphasized Mexico’s growing advanced manufacturing presence and the need to hire high-caliber professionals on the ground: “It’s a demographically young and more educated country that is thirsty to take its place on the global stage,” he says.
Presenting companies at the Summit included American Express, Visa, IHG Hotels & Resorts and Coupa Software. Content was bilingual, but future events will “lean on Spanish first,” Derry says.
“One thing I truly appreciated about Institute for Supply Management®’s launch in Mexico was the intentionality behind it,” Daniela Osio, founder and CEO of Kloopify, a Pittsburgh-based sustainable procurement platform, wrote on LinkedIn. “They didn’t just host a conference here — they embraced the culture, the traditions, and the people.
“From a dynamic mix of global and local speakers to thoughtful touches like authentic Mexican cuisine for lunch and real-time translation devices ensuring full engagement for all attendees, inclusion was clearly a priority.”
What’s next? The partnership must involve more than “lobbing webinars over the border,” Derry says. ISM plans to provide on-site Certified Professional in Supply Management® (CPSM®) courses and other training later this year.
Addressing Mexico’s Challenges
The combined efforts to support supply chain professionals in Mexico might be fortuitously timed, given the tariff uncertainties and the impact on the nation’s economy. Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP) shrunk in the fourth quarter of 2024, the first time that has happened since the coronavirus pandemic.
On Monday, the country’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography announced that in January, GDP decreased 0.2 percent month over month, suggesting a “recession is unavoidable,” J.P. Morgan stated in a note to investors and clients.
For Rosales, the Mexican economy has three key elements: (1) the local market serving the country’s population of 129 million and neighboring Latin American nations, (2) the export market and (3) the potential impact of Asian companies coming to Mexico. The third element is especially volatile due to tariffs turbulence, he says.
“That’s a trend that hasn’t matured to the point where it is changing the game in Mexico,” he says. “A trade war would have a big impact.”
While Summit insights were timely and valuable, Rosales says, he is hopeful that future content can be tweaked to address subjects most critical to the Mexican supply chain community: best practices in procurement, artificial intelligence (AI) and risk evaluation trends.
The endgame, Derry says, is ISM staff in Mexico City and possibly Monterrey, which has a growing industrial sector. “In the not-too-distant future, we hope to have feet on the ground,” he says.