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Time is money, right? And working like clockwork means making intelligent decisions for your company that don’t keep you up at night – having an operation that’s efficient, lower-cost, gets your products to market quickly, and keeps you ahead of your competition. It also means finding a secure place to grow your company without the risk of today’s fast-changing wages, taxes, unionization and regulatory trends. Your time is one of the most valuable commodities there is, so we’ll be quick and to the point: |
| It’s time for your company to consider Tijuana. | We’ve already given a short three minutes overview of what our City has to offer – but take a few more minutes to read the rest of this booklet, and you just might find some facts about Tijuana that will surprise you and help your company stand the rest of time. |
| The Tijuana-San Diego mega-region | |
| globally strategic, yet very near-shore | |
| It’s not often that companies find the mix of benefits that a globally strategic location like Tijuana has. | |
| As the second-largest city on the Pacific Coast of North America (after Los Angeles), Tijuana can give your business a near shore yet next door production platform that few places in the world can –especially when we are next to the second largest city in California: San Diego. With a time-zone that won’t keep you up at night (Pacific Standard Time), Tijuana’s location means no cross-oceanic flights and no long trips South of the border to solve problems – and you can get your products quickly to your customers – Where they need to be, and when you need them. |
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| The Tijuana-San Diego mega-region | |
While some off-shore productions locations appear attractive with “lowest-cost” labor. Tijuana’s peso-denominated labor rates provide significant cost-savings and a unique near-shore solution with lower total cost to market – given Tijuana’s experienced workforce, productivity, quality, and supply chain strengths. Tijuana’s advantages provide other, less obvious cost savings too, with its moderate climate, your company can avoid the excessive energy costs you’d get in many hotter and more humid (or hurricane-prone) cities in other border locations, Tijuana investors also gain from higher uptime with more-advanced infrastructure, low levels of unionization, and state of the art industrial facilities, A very cool, money saving solution, indeed… |
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| One of Tijuana’s strengths is its Pacific Rim location – facilitating logistics and getting your products to major markets, combined with a just-in-time production culture that only a city with Tijuana’s critical mass of multinational companies could create. Speeding your time to market means your company carries less inventory, is more nimble with market changes, and can better link your entire supply chain – whether your raw materials or products need to come through the Port of LA/Long Beach, fly out just-in-time via LAX or San Diego, or be shipped via truck or rail across North America. Proximity has its advantages – not only can you truck your finished products from Tijuana and get them anywhere in the U.S. on one to five days, but face-to-face communication between your Tijuana operation and customers or corporate staff is only hours away – with extensive air travel options available via San Diego’s International Airport and LAX. Within one to five hours you can fly almost anywhere in the U.S. – not to mention that Tijuana’s airport – the fifth largest in Mexico – offers access to major cities throughout Mexico, as well as Shanghai (China), and Narita (Japan). |
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| Market access | |||
| Having your business in Tijuana not only means you’ll be in a great city next to U.S. markets – it also means you get access to Mexico’s globally-oriented menu of free trade agreements. Beyond NAFTA -which has provided Tijuana-based companies with duty free entry for most products into the U.S. and Canada since 1994 – Mexico’s pro-international trade policies have created a world-wide network of free trade policies have created a world-wide network of free trade treaties with 44 countries, including: |
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After more than 40 years of experience as a capital of the maquiladora industry, Tijuana hasn’t grown just due to lower labor costs – it also grows on its Human Capital. With the experience brought by hundreds of international companies and an entrepreneurial spirit that has attracted talent from throughout the country and the globe, Tijuana has one of the largest and highest-skilled workforces in Mexico With one of the highest literacy rates in Mexico, Tijuana has more than 35 public – and private – universities, as well as 14 technical schools and 57 high schools, that support the education of its 640,000-strong workforce. |
| IMultinational knowledge base | |
| We’ve already given a short three minutes overview of what our City has to offer – but take a few more minutes to read the rest of this booklet, and you just might find some facts about Tijuana that will surprise you and help your company stand the rest of time. |
| With some of the US’ leading educational programs in aerospace, biotechnology, business administration, computing, engineering, medicine, and telecommunications, not only will you find the brainpower your company needs for US-based R&D or support operations, but you’ll also find that many of Tijuana’s professionals take advantage of being next door to San Diego’s Universities to grow their own skills. Made up of a diverse population that includes business people from around the globe, Tijuana truly gives your company a multinational knowledge base. |
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| Quality is not an act – it’s a habit. And every day in Tijuana, a majority of Tijuana’s 170,000 manufacturing workers perform this habit at hundreds of companies that have ISO9001, ISO13485, ISO/TS16949, Six Sigma, 5S, kaizen, and other quality management certifications or lean manufacturing environments. It’s a culture of quality – shaped by experience, and reflected in the people working in Tijuana’s high-tech manufacturing operations, in Class 10,000 and Class 100,000 clean rooms, in FDA- and Department of Defense- regulated facilities, and in QS-certified automotive industry operations. |
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| Here’s what a typical day can be like for you – with your new operation in Tijuana: |
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Today’s Agenda |
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7:50 am: Plane arrived on time at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field after a shore flight. Stopped for a coffee at Starbucks, then met with R&D team near UC San Diego about new design concepts. Good group of engineers – graduates from UCSD and San Diego State (go Aztecs!). |
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10:20 am: Parked in Downtown San Diego to discuss IP issues with our lawyer. Says that intellectual property enforcement of our products aren’t a problem in Mexico – our patents are enforceable under NAFTA and TRIPS (good to know!). |
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11:15 am: Drove to Tijuana with engineering team (Company car with SENTRI border pass – smart idea). |
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11:35 am: Crossed border into TJ. |
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11:50 am Arrived at manufacturing operation. Glad we chose this location – out od 60+ industrial parks, this was a great option. Met Plant Manager and technical team while touring factory – they’ve already got the ISO certification, and a lean manufacturing system in place from the assembly team on up. We’re saving a bundle with productivity gains and lower labor costs! |
| 1:15 pm Visited the Distribution center. Highly experienced bilingual supply chain team with multi-national company backgrounds. Showed me a truck leaving with our products going to Asia (across the border and at LAX in only 5-6 hours), another heading to Dallas (will arrive in only 2-3 days), and another going to Chicago (will be there in 4 days – weeks faster than our former factory in Asia!). |
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| 2:00 pm: Had lunch with Tijuana team at great restaurant near Downtown Tijuana (been to several already – they seem to just get better). Stopped at on one of the many Starbucks in TJ, then headed back to the border crossing to go to San Diego. |
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| 4:20 pm: Crossed the border quickly in the SENTRI lane (this border crossing program saves our executives lots of time). |
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| 5:00 pm: Back to Downtown San Diego with time to spare – think I’ll take an earlier flight home, and arrive in time to kiss the kids good-night and have a late dinner with my wife. Long day, but very productive – can’t do that very many places in the world! |
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Just next door to Tijuana is San Diego – the second-largest city in California, and hailed by many as “America’s Finest City”. The 4.7 million residents of the Tijuana-San Diego binational mega region are in fact, neighbors connected not just by economics, social ties and culture, but also geographically by the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa border crossing – the most crossed international border in the world. Being a part of such a dynamic region not only gives an edge to your company, but also something no other near – and off-shore location can offer: a globally competitive business platform in Tijuana, plus time to enjoy yourself in wonderful San Diego… |
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| the southern California-Baja way of Life |
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As great as it is to be able to enjoy Southern California, it’s even better when you add Baja California. From Tijuana’s well-known arts and cultural centers, to dining on delicious BajaMed cuisine and lobster, or exploring the off-road areas of Baja’s deserts and beaches – no other area along the U.S.-Mexico border or in Mexico can give you time for yourself, or a way of life, that’s quite this nice. |
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| We’ve covered a lot about Tijuana and its many benefits for today’s globally-minded companies – and now’s a good time to offer a few more points to compare Tijuana with some of Mexico’s other manufacturing cities. We think you’ll find a few surprises – and see why we think you should choose Tijuana: |
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