Abstract
Managing the global production network is becoming more complex. The critical issue is no longer where to produce a product but where to perform individual production tasks. Latin American companies are at both ends of this process. They face this issue for producing their own products and services for the large Latin America region and as host sites for outsourced operations by other companies—particularly those with “near-sourcing” strategies for serving the US market. In this paper I present a framework which helps charting the evolution of a firm’s global operations network. The research is based on clinical analysis of four companies and examples from a few more (a particularly relevant one is the case of Zara). While the focus in this paper is not on any specific region of the world, the framework presented here can serve as a useful guide for Latin American companies. As Latin America moves beyond being a source for supplying commodities to the outside world, the issues of how to design, and fit into, a global production network will deserve more attention from senior managers in this region
