Obama in Brazil…and now what?

President Obama left Brazil and continued on his Latin American tour at the beginning of this week with many in Brazil scratching their head and asking if anything happened during his visit. Obama did visit the famous ‘City of God’ favela and played football with the kids on the street, but cancelled his planned speech on the beach in Rio in favor of a more sober theater speech to the people. With crises all around, it wouldn’t look good to be seen on the beach in Brazil chatting to a beer-drinking audience. *View more articles by Mark Kobayashi-Hillary But there are some real issues faced by Brazilian companies trying to do business with partners in the US and many were hoping that more issues might be addressed during his visit. It never really happened. As is common with these big state visits, the actual visit of the leader is more of a catalyst for change rather than the change itself. ‘Yes we can’ becomes ‘yes we might be able to at some future date.’ There was one big announcement for the business community though. A new economic and commercial treaty has been agreed on so measures to facilitate trade between the US and Brazil can be explored in more detail. It does indicate that more discussion and research is needed, so even though there was no direct action on taxes and tariffs in both directions, there was at least the acknowledgement that if the two countries want to work together then they need to liberalize tax at the border. But in other respects, it felt like the US president was not interested in listening to Brazilian complaints. US economic policy continues to use qualitative easing – printing money – to help stimulate the American economic recovery and this is doing the Brazilian Real no favors at all… making exports – such as IT services - look increasingly expensive. Some in Brasilia felt slighted at the failure of Obama to explicitly support Brazil’s claim to a place at the enhanced UN security council, but the fact that Obama came to Brazil first on his tour of the region shows that he knows the importance of Brazil for both trade and security. The foreign exchange pressures and failure to quickly address trade liberalization by both governments does not help the sourcing community much. Brazil is getting more expensive for IT and BPO services and needs to find a niche on which to focus. There are some incredible technology companies here with world-beating innovative solutions, but the press and trade associations tend to position Brazil as an offshoring destination that has to compete with India on price. I would suggest that Brazil needs to start comparing itself more to the UK, a country that exports more than twice the value of IT services it imports. Nobody could call the UK a low cost offshoring location, but they are exporting a lot of specialized IT services. With highly developed markets in oil & gas, green energy, banking, and e-government (e-voting as standard for a decade), Brazil’s technology firms are brimming over with ideas and experience. If only they stopped seeing India as the benchmark then some of those ideas could be sold to American firms at far greater prices with the project cost not being an obstacle to partnering with Brazil. About the Author Mark Kobayashi-Hillary is the CEO of IT Decisions, the leading source of English-language insight into the Brazilian tech sector. He is British and based in SÃ¤o Paulo, Brazil. Mark is also an author, blogger, and advisor on technology, globalisation and corporate change. He has written several successful management books, including ‘Global Services: Moving to a Level Playing Field’, ‘Who Moved My Job?’, and ‘Building a Future with BRICs’. The theme running through most of his books is how company structures are changing, globalising, and offering new opportunities for intelligent executives. Mark's outsourcing blog for Computing magazine eventually became a book in 2009, titled 'Talking Outsourcing' and this blog was shortlisted for a blog of the year award in 2009 by Computer Weekly magazine. He blogs for a number of other media organisations including Reuters, https://silicon.com, and Computer Weekly. Mark has advised the United Nations on the development of the IT industry in Africa and Bangladesh, the Indian government on service exports, and the British government on developing a hi-tech economy. Mark spent most of September 2010 working with the Maltese government on a benchmarking exercise guiding their ICT industry development. Mark is a visiting lecturer on the MBA programme at London South Bank University and has lectured as a guest at many other universities including the LSE, Loughborough, and Henley Management College. www.markhillary.com www.itdecs.com

Obama in Brazil…and now what?

Upcoming Events

From Cost Centre to Control Tower: How Platform-Driven GBS is Redefining Enterprise Value in the Age of AI

Why Your AI Costs More Than Your Workforce and How AI Employees Change the Equation

From Transactions to Trust: Transforming AP, AR, and Communications into Customer Experience Drivers

Through Trust and Governance: How AI Agents are Redefining Accounts Payable

Why Shared Services and GBS Transformation Stalls and How to Overcome Change Fatigue

How AI-Native Accounts Payable Is Changing the Finance Function

Follow Us

Latest Webinars

Accelerating O2C Transformation: How AI Is Reshaping the Cash Conversion Cycle

Germany’s 1 January 2027 E-Invoicing Deadline: Timely Guidance for Time-Crunched Leaders

How AI-Native Accounts Payable Is Changing the Finance Function

Recommended

Egypt: The Next Country North American Shared Services Should Consider IT and Bu...

How Do Sourcing Objectives and Criteria Determine the Sourcing Approach ?

The Outsourcing “Conundrum”: Securing the Benefits You Expect

EP17 The critical link between digital transformation and GBS (Global Business S...

BPO = Business Process Outcomes [not Business Process Outsourcing]

5 Ways Your Business Process Management System Could Be Failing Your Back Office

"Parts Is Parts" - The Key to Differentiating Yourself

Tech Demo: Accelerating Invoicing to Overcome Workload, Speed and Regulatory Cha...

What Will Save BPOs?

Shifting to SaaS may not eliminate the “Technical Debt”

Offshore Engineering R&D Centers Will Continue to Flourish in Current Crisis

Play Nice, Outsourcing Providers. There will be life after COVID-19

FIND CONTENT BY TYPE

SSON COMMUNITY

ADVERTISE WITH US

JOIN THE SSON COMMUNITY

Obama in Brazil…and now what?

Upcoming Events

Follow Us

Subscribe to our Free Newsletter

Latest Webinars

Recommended

FIND CONTENT BY TYPE

SSON COMMUNITY

ADVERTISE WITH US

JOIN THE SSON COMMUNITY