In Mexico, a growing number of mid-sized companies are discovering that their technology infrastructure is struggling to keep up with their business ambitions. SIATSA, a nearly 40-year-old Mexican firm specializing in IT infrastructure, data centers, and applied artificial intelligence, has launched a video series titled 'El Costo Invisible' (The Invisible Cost) to shed light on this hidden crisis. The series features candid conversations with executives from finance, manufacturing, and the automotive and industrial equipment supply chain, hosted by Arlet Delgadillo, Business Development at SIATSA. Each guest brings a unique perspective, but they all converge on a shared diagnosis: technology debt is silently eroding efficiency, reliability, and competitiveness.
The real cost of outdated infrastructure rarely appears on a budget line. Instead, it manifests in slower response times, unreliable data, and integrations that fail at critical moments. Carlos De Alba Gutiérrez, a financial strategy consultant working with consumer brand founders, warns that an ERP is not a universal solution. 'There are many types of companies where an ERP won’t solve your problems. Before bringing in any ERP, verify that it’s really what you need, the devil is in the details,' he says. Daniel Alameda Picazo, founder of DAP, a custom manufacturer of electrical components, highlights a systemic lack of foresight in Mexican plants: 'Almost every plant I’ve visited follows the same pattern: they work under urgency. It’s only once something has already failed that everyone starts running.'
José Francisco Flores Alcalá, a data scientist and senior project leader, emphasizes communication breakdowns as a major source of delays. 'If there isn’t good communication among everyone involved, that’s where projects get delayed, and not just within one company, it can involve several,' he notes. Jesús Adrián García López, an electrical design engineer at Wheelabrator Group, points to human error and poor organization as underestimated costs, particularly during equipment startups. 'There has to be some kind of structure, an organization that helps technicians know exactly which part is where. A lot of what goes wrong comes down to human error,' he says. He adds that rush-ordering a part can cost up to fifty percent more while the machine sits idle. Sergio Iván Torres Valdés, a product engineer at Bocar Group with over 13 years in automotive manufacturing, observes that innovation is often neglected in Mexican manufacturing: 'Many companies don’t have the resources that some technology companies do, that’s exactly where innovation can make a difference. In manufacturing in Mexico, the development side feels a bit abandoned, we rely heavily on clients to bring in what’s new.'
These conversations are more than just anecdotal; they reflect a pattern SIATSA has observed for decades. The company's service model—IT as a Service (ITaaS), Data Center as a Service (DCaaS), and AI as a Service (AIaaS)—is designed to give mid-sized companies the technological solidity of a large corporation without the associated cost complexity. Rather than pushing a product, SIATSA begins with a diagnosis of the client's actual operation, identifying legacy systems without documentation, overstretched IT teams, and layers of integrations that no one fully understands.
Fernando Regidor, CEO of SIATSA, explains the motivation behind the series: 'For almost 40 years we’ve watched the same pattern play out in Mexican companies: the business keeps growing, but the technology underneath it falls behind, and almost no one is willing to say so out loud. With ‘El Costo Invisible,’ we’re not selling a solution. We want more executives to have this conversation before the cost of avoiding it becomes too high to ignore.' The series aims to provoke a necessary dialogue about technology debt, encouraging companies to confront the invisible costs that threaten their long-term competitiveness.
