Factores de competitividad, situación nacional y cadena productiva de la industria del calzado en León, Guanajuato

Abstract

La industria mexicana enfrenta grandes oportunidades por la reciente apertura comercial, pero al mismo tiempo está ante grandes retos para salir adelante en esta coyuntura. Un sector involucrado y que tiene un papel importante en la globalización económica, y que por causa de ella ha vivido importantes transformaciones, es el manufacturero. Esta transformación puede traer como consecuencia que nuestro país pueda alcanzar una posición competitiva en el mercado mundial. En este sector encontramos a la industria del calzado, la cual será analizada en el presente trabajo. Esta actividad tiene la característica de ser intensiva en mano de obra, en lo cual México podría lograr una situación favorable con relación a algunos países y segmentos de mercado internacionales. En los últimos años, esta industria ha experimentado un importante dinamismo en el comercio exterior y los niveles de producción se han recuperado tras una importante caída al principio de los años noventa. Sin embargo, esto no es suficiente para aliviar las deficiencias en la cadena productiva, lo que podría tener un impacto indeseable en la eficiencia y la competitividad mundial.

Achieving competitive advantage in the Mexican footwear industry

“…In this early stage, most SMEs' difficulties related to operational inefficiencies. At an individual level, SMEs responded by focusing mainly on plant design improvements, machinery upgrading, product development and quality improvement (Iglesias, 1998; Ortiz and Martinez, 2000). However, it was also necessary to take advantage of the strengths they could produce jointly, and so the industry efforts attempted to exploit the advantages of an industrial district organisation (clustering) (Rabellotti, 1995).…”

“…These individuals did not use managerial techniques like planning, forecasting or data for decision support (Ortiz and Martinez, 2000). This undermined their strategic vision impacting negatively on their firm's performance and competitive position because there was no awareness of possible opportunities or threats, particularly in the long‐term.…”

“…Under this business environment the first steps towards internationalisation took place as some firms started to export as a way to compensate for the loss of domestic market share. This strategy was based on exports of low quality rubber footwear (Ortiz and Martinez, 2000). Exports addressed the American market mainly, probably due to geographical closeness favouring low transport costs.…”

“…Firms that were unable to overcome their operational difficulties and were unable to compete disappeared from the industry, others merged (Ortiz and Martinez, 2000) and most firms reduced their capacity and workforce (Lozano and Mendez, 2002; Rabellotti, 1999). SMEs were using 55.9 per cent of their production capacity during 1993, while employment in the footwear industry dropped from 127,636 jobs in 1990 to 115,222 jobs in 1993.…”

“…SMEs faced greater pressures from imports causing the closure of many firms (Bautista, 1994). It also brought more pressures to suppliers in the footwear industry since there were great difficulties in the supply of raw materials and particularly in the supply of bovine leather (Ortiz and Martinez, 2000). Thus, many producers substituted domestic supplies with cheaper and higher quality imported supplies (Woodruff, 1998).…”