After 15 years working for one of Mexico’s biggest HR and payroll systems software companies, software engineer Rafael Rucobo decided it was time to break out on his own. Originally arriving in Ciudad Juárez to run a new company office, Rucobo says that eventually he didn’t see further opportunities for professional growth at his job. He wanted more income for his family, more freedom and, above all else, the experience of being an entrepreneur.
10 years later, Rucobo is managing HUMANTEK, a human capital software solutions company he started to help businesses automate HR and payroll processes. In the wake of mass labour force digitalization, he says companies increasingly need services that design and implement tailored technological platforms.
It was a long and sometimes difficult journey from university in Baja California to self-made entrepreneur in Ciudad Juárez. Rucobo says that HUMANTEK’s first two years were extremely difficult in terms of revenue. With persistence, the company finally saw growth in its third year and has seen year on year growth thereafter.
“We feel that we now know the HR and payroll market niche pretty well. It’s getting better all the time,” Rucobo says of his business, which now boasts two decades of experience in maquiladoras, national industry and global platforms such as SAP, Workday and Oracle. With over 250 projects implemented, HUMANTEK’s clients include Invisalign, Liderlac and TECMA.
While things have continued on an upward trajectory, Rucobo could see that there was still room for improvement. There were areas in the company, such as incoming contracts and investment, that were not being managed for optimal performance. He knew this could lead to blind spots and missed opportunities. So Rucobo took the leap and applied to enroll in The Bridge Accelerator program.
“We thought we needed to organize our company better and The Bridge was a fantastic opportunity to consolidate ourselves as a business that can be a maquiladora provider- in both Ciudad Juárez and El Paso,” he says.
The Bridge Accelerator is bolstering regional border companies’ stake and share of a $39 billion bi-national supply chain. The tailored program works with businesses to enhance their processes, upskill staff, identify and action on areas of improvement and facilitate commercial supplier relationships with industry and major manufacturers in the region.
The program proved rigorous for HUMANTEK’s small staff. Since the program Rucobo says their alignment with the companies they serve is a lot stronger and they are better equipped to deal with larger scale companies. He adds that internally, the team has more strongly defined company objectives.
“It was like a business X-ray on how to be a good supplier in the Borderplex region” Though he notes, that they still have a lot of work to do. “It was like a trampoline to launch into competing alongside the best maquiladora suppliers operating in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.”
What’s more, Rucobo says the exposure, business connections, as well as the simple fact that they are graduates from The Bridge Accelerator program, has made them known and opened them up as providers to business owners and maquila managers.
Take TECMA, a company that HUMANTEK had never worked with before. The company commissioned two contracts worth $100,000 and $75,000 respectively, after meeting them on The Bridge Accelerator Demo Day and listening to their formal company pitch.
The first contract was to develop a smartphone employee portal application to allow the 10,000 TECMA employees in Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana to interact with the company’s HR department. It’s a slick, attractive and easy to use app that allows employees to manage salary, apply for U.S. work permissions and program personal leave.
Rucobo says they then received a second TECMA contract worth even more than the first. The brief is to develop software to assist maquiladora medical department’s administration systems.
“These are big, big contracts for us,” says Rucobo, adding that they have had to recruit two more software engineers to keep up with the increased work and demand. They are forecasting further growth, with additional contracts with maquilas in the year to come.
With HUMANTEK flourishing, Rucobo feels just as good about his own professional development and his entrepreneurial status in the border region. He says there are immediate opportunities for local SMEs to become bigger players in the bi-national supply chain and cross border entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“It’s an excellent place to live and do business. Companies capable of supplying manufacturers can really generate a lot of money in the region,” says Rucobo. He sees The Bridge Accelerator’s capacity to equip regional companies to work with global manufacturers, as limitless.
“There is a tremendous opportunity for more business.” He says he regularly gets asked by business people and engineers who are curious about how The Bridge Accelerator helped HUMANTEK to develop.
“A lot of my colleagues are looking to become certified and qualified maquiladora providers, and The Bridge is really facilitating and preparing it for companies here.”
