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While it’s not the only factor, there is no doubt that being able to speak a local language is a key to doing business in any given country.  And while certain languages are common in large groups of countries (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic and others) there are some that may be limited in the number of countries spoken, but have a very important reach in terms of population numbers and of course, where a company may intend to do business.

According to a recent CNBC article “Language Barriers and Miscommunications are Stifling Growth“, almost half of executives surveyed admitted that communication misunderstandings have stood in the way of major international business deals and therefore resulted in significant losses for their companies.  Additionally, 9 out of 10 expect their number of international clients to increase over the next three years, highlighting the need companies have for language competency, as well as areas that future job seekers should consider.

As a U.S. company that deals with the Hispanic market within the U.S. as well as Latin America, we have worked to put together a multilingual team.  The benefits of this have been evident from evaluating clients’ marketing efforts to doing business in Latin America. I have come to the conclusion that not only is language and cultural understanding important for the employer, but is also a considerable plus for job seekers in their evaluation of a company.

As the article states, language competency does require focus on the part of companies, and while not easy to achieve, it is imperative that companies looking to do business internationally create an environment that fosters both linguistic and cultural understanding.

Internet Adoption in Mexico 2011

The World Internet Project in collaboration with the Monterrey Institute of Technology or, Tecnológico de Monterrey recently released its annual study on Mexicans’ habits and perceptions of the Internet and other associated technologies.

From a geographic perspective, the Distrito Federal, the country’s largest commercial and population concentration, accounts for 25% of all of the country’s online community.  With the exception of the North East region at 10%, which includes the sparsely populated Baja Peninsula, the rest of the report found that the rest of the country’s regions are fairly evenly distributed at approximately 16% share.

From a demographic perspective, gender distribution closely assimilates the country’s population with a 52/48 split between male/female Internet users.  Interestingly, 40% of Internet users are under the age of 19, which suggests that a significant portion of Mexico’s online community has none to very limited purchasing power vis-à-vis the rest of the population.

Speaking of which, from a socioeconomic perspective, 43% of the online population falls into category “D” (e.g., live in public housing) while 36% of the online community fall into the B/C+.  Playing a balancing act, 90% of the highest HHI homes have at least one Internet user.

During the last three years, checking email has been the leading activity online with upwards of 93% of users doing it.  That said, accessing social networks has seen significant growth, from 32% penetration in 2009 to 70% in 2011.  While all indicators point to Mexico being an attractive market for digital businesses, the research suggests that there is still significant growth yet to be realized.  Here you can access a copy of the research’s summary of findings.