Our Story
Learn our story, leadership, and mission shaping manufacturing in Mexico.
The Problem
Why the Smallest Purchases Carry a Larger Exposure
In Mexico, part of the tax burden of every purchase sits with the buyer. The tax authority expects you to confirm that a vendor is in good standing before you pay it, and when one falls short, the VAT on that invoice may not come back, and neither does the shift spent chasing a supplier who has never heard of you.
A Wide Market, Much of It Informal
Mexico has a vendor for almost everything. Many are informal, without the approvals, brand authorization or expertise they claim, and from outside the country you cannot tell which is which.
The Cheap Quote That Costs You the Tax
A vendor’s invoice is a digital tax receipt. VAT is recoverable only from a vendor in good standing with SAT, Mexico’s tax authority, and recovery timing and success are subject to SAT.
A Line Down for a Consumable
The production material is on the floor and the line stops anyway, because a grinding wheel did not arrive. Someone on your team spends the shift chasing a vendor who does not know you.
Our Solution
You Decide What to Buy, We Buy It
Your team decides what your plant buys in Mexico and approves it at your own spending levels. We vet the vendor with SAT, issue the purchase order from our Mexican entity and pay against your receipt. You control production, process and quality. We carry the buying.
A Catalog of Vendors Already Vetted
Before any vendor takes a first order it goes through our file: its standing with SAT, the documents a buyer in Mexico has to hold, and its references. We re-check that standing as orders recur, and a vendor whose standing lapses is blocked in our system until it is fixed. You choose whether to wait or name another. When the one specialist you need is not compliant, we help it get there.
A Requisition Your Buyer Raises in Our Portal
Your buyers raise the requisition in our portal, and it goes for signature under the delegation of authority your corporate office sets: who can approve, and up to what amount. We send the request to vendors in your catalog or source a new one, and return the best options ranked on price, service, quality and lead time. You choose. Only a signed requisition becomes a purchase order.
A Purchase Order in Tetakawi's Name
We issue the purchase order to the vendor from Tetakawi’s Mexican entity and track it to delivery. Vendors here answer a Tetakawi order because they know its terms will be honored, and because the Campus is a steady buyer in this region. You receive the goods and sign the proof of delivery. The vendor invoices against that order, so what you asked for, what arrived and what was billed all match.
The Invoice Matched Before the Payment
We check each invoice against its purchase order before anything is paid, including the digital tax receipt the vendor registers with SAT. A receipt SAT has not registered goes back to the vendor, not to you. Payment follows your signed receipt, from Tetakawi’s accounts, and the expense is yours, so your plant opens no Mexican bank account and holds no cash in Mexico.
Contracts in Our Name, Spend in Your Portal
Once you agree the terms, we sign the service contracts your plant runs on in Tetakawi’s name. Your spend shows in the portal by vendor, category and period, and an alert reaches you when a vendor is blocked or a threshold is crossed. The value-added tax on what you buy is claimed back for you, and its recovery timing and success are subject to SAT.
Benefits
A Purchasing Department on Your Campus
Your Local Buying Runs on Vetted Vendors
Your buyer raises a requisition in the portal, and a vetted vendor fills it under a purchase order in Tetakawi’s name. The paperwork behind that vendor is already done.
- A catalog of Mexican vendors vetted for their tax standing
- Vendors paid by Tetakawi, with no Mexican bank account to open
- A portal where your buyers raise, approve and track orders
- Spend by vendor and category, with alerts when a threshold is crossed
Onboarding
Your First Purchase Order and Every Order After
Your purchasing set-up is one workstream in the single launch plan your Tetakawi project lead runs. The purchasing team on the Campus learns your process first, because the process decides which vendors it needs.
1.
Your Process and Approvers
You describe the process and what the plant consumes, then name who approves each level of spending and up to what limit.
2.
Vendors Vetted and Loaded
We find the vendors in the region, vet their tax standing and their documents, and load them into your own catalog.
3.
Buyers and First Orders
We set up your buyers in our system and walk them through it, from the first requisition all the way through to payment.
4.
Re-Checks and Renewals
Your buyers keep ordering. We re-check each vendor standing, report the spend back to you and renew the contracts.
Testimonials
Indirect Procurement in Practice
Manufacturers on a Tetakawi Campus, on the buying, the vendors and the administrative work that runs beside their production without pulling them off it.
“At the beginning of the operation we were supported by Tetakawi’s dedicated purchasing department, which serves all the plants. If you want to manage your own purchasing team, you can do that. Tetakawi has a very nice bucket of suppliers that they offer to you. That keeps you from being worried, and you can focus on your operation.”
Carlos Rivera, Plant Manager, HUBER+SUHNER
“We produce sewn covers for the marine and power sport markets, protecting against dust, water and the sun. The workforce here is skilled, stable and motivated, and Tetakawi connects us with the workforce we need now and in the future, and with other suppliers in the region.”
Agustín Mendoza, Plant Manager, Commercial Sewing
“One of the biggest advantages of being with Tetakawi is the administrative compliance. The structure of Tetakawi helps us cover the fiscal compliance and the vendor management. Instead of constantly reacting to other external factors, Tetakawi covers all of that, so we can focus on execution and business growth.”
Marco López, Vice President and General Manager, Intec Group
Integrated Services
The Integrated Services Behind Every Campus
Our on-site teams help you launch your operation, keep your building running, employ and pay your workforce, move your materials across the border, buy what your plant consumes, and keep your permits, filings and registrations current.
FAQs
Indirect Procurement in Mexico FAQs
The questions we get most often from manufacturers looking at Mexico.
What do you do, and what stays ours?
We buy what you tell us to buy, from vendors we have vetted. You decide.
This covers what your plant runs on, not what goes into your product: maintenance and repair supplies, consumables, protective equipment and services. Your buyers raise the requisition in our portal at your own approval levels. We vet the vendor’s standing with SAT, issue the purchase order from our Mexican entity and pay against your receipt. The expense is yours.
What do you need from us, order to order?
A requisition approved at your levels, and your signature on delivery.
Your buyers raise and approve each requisition in the portal under the delegation of authority your corporate office sets. You receive the goods and sign the proof of delivery, because payment follows your receipt. When the approvers change, the new matrix comes from your corporate office, not from the floor.
What happens when a vendor fails?
The vendor is blocked, and you choose what happens next.
A vendor whose standing with SAT lapses is blocked in our system until it is fixed, and you choose whether to wait or name another. A purchase order we got wrong is ours to correct. A penalty arising from what you asked us to buy, or how you use it, stays with you. VAT is claimed back on what you buy, and recovery timing and success are subject to SAT.
What happens when the plant needs something new?
A new vendor is vetted, or one you already know is.
A new category, a new service contract or a supplier you already use comes back to the same check: standing with SAT, documents, then the catalog. A specialist that is not compliant is helped to regularize rather than dropped. A vendor outside Mexico can be coordinated as an additional service.
Production materials are not bought here. You purchase them, and they enter Mexico through your import and export operation under Tetakawi’s program.
How do we explore running our operation on a Tetakawi Campus?
Four steps, in order.
1. Get in touch. A conversation about what you are hoping to achieve in Mexico, and why now.
2. Measure ROI. We build the business case with you: the full cost of running your operation on a Campus, the risks and the trade-offs, and which Campus fits.
3. Site visit. Walk the Campus, meet the people who would run your account, talk with manufacturers already operating there, and meet the buyers who would place your orders.
4. Launch and grow. When you give the green light, the same team that helped you build the case guides the launch.
