Mendoza Competitiva: The BCM's Bid to Bring Local Companies into Major Corporations' Value Chains

With a focus on the conditions that today determine who gets in and who is left out of major value chains, the Mendoza Chamber of Commerce (BCM) hosted “Mendoza Competitiva: las capacidades que exige el mercado” (“Competitive Mendoza: The Capabilities the Market Demands”), a panel discussion with a hands-on workshop that brought together companies and suppliers from different sectors.

Business owners and leading figures from the local productive sector took part in the event, which the Mendoza Chamber of Commerce organized together with Transparencia Latam and Linking Values. The opening remarks were given by Sabrina Salvi, Director of Institutional Relations and Communications at the BCM; the session was moderated by Paula Cortijo, a lawyer specializing in Governance, Compliance and Evidence-Based Sustainability, and Founder & CEO of Transparencia Latam. In addition, Raúl Giuffre, head of Giuffre Maderas; Maximiliano Ivanissevich, Director of Corporate Affairs and Human Capital at 360 Energy; and Pablo Daniel Sanabria, partner at Cassagne Abogados, shared their experience. 

Panel of business leaders at Mendoza Competitiva

In her welcoming remarks, Sabrina Salvi framed the initiative within the institution's current stage: “At the Chamber of Commerce, we believe that competitiveness is not built individually. It is built by forging ties, sharing knowledge, and coordinating among companies, the public and private sectors, chambers and institutions.”

“Today, having a good product or providing good service is no longer enough. Markets demand more and more: professionalization, transparency, compliance, sustainability and adaptability. And being prepared for those demands also means being prepared to grow, access new markets and seize new business and investment opportunities,” added the BCM's Director of Institutional Relations and Communications.

The event started from the real distance that today separates much of Mendoza's business fabric from the requirements demanded by companies arriving in the region.

The gap between incoming investment and the company that receives it

Compliance, risk management, process traceability and quality standards have stopped being a competitive edge and become the minimum entry requirement. Without those accredited capabilities, a company cannot access financing, cannot qualify as a supplier, and cannot integrate into major value chains, no matter how close the opportunity may be.

Regarding what is being asked of companies today, why they fall short, and what can be corrected in the short term, Paula Cortijo, Founder of Transparencia Latam, noted: “Whoever buys, invests or finances no longer looks only at the product, the price, the quality and the delivery time, but at how the company makes decisions, what risks it faces, what controls it has, and how it can demonstrate all of that.” That's where the gap appears: many firms manage well but don't document it, and today what isn't documented doesn't exist for those evaluating. The short-term fix, she pointed out, starts with understanding one's own situation before committing to a standard. 

Three perspectives on the same demand

The panel discussion brought together three complementary perspectives on the same issue. The legal viewpoint was provided by Pablo Daniel Sanabria, partner at Cassagne Abogados, who addressed specific cases and legal risks that have already materialized. On this point, he noted that since 2017 Argentina has enforced criminal liability for legal entities: in the event of a corruption case, the penalty also reaches the company, and having an integrity program can mitigate or even rule out the penalty. Added to that risk is reputational damage and an obstacle that is not regulatory but cultural, since in every organization written rules coexist with entrenched practices that no manual can fix on its own.

Business experience was contributed by Raúl Giuffre, of Giuffre Maderas, who recalled what happened in 2020, when a multinational client informed him that he had to certify his processes on an international evaluation platform, paid for by the supplier, in order to remain part of its supply chain. The first rating was mediocre, and only by documenting and systematizing each process was he able to achieve approval, an evaluation that has been repeated every year since. He stressed that the requirement is not exclusive to large companies but applies to all of them at their own scale, and that organizing that documentation ended up being an internal improvement: knowledge that once depended on one person became written down and transferable.

The third voice came from Maximiliano Ivanissevich, Director of Corporate Affairs and Human Capital at 360 Energy, a local company that manages its own supplier network. Maximiliano spoke about the leap triggered by Stellantis becoming a shareholder of the company: even as a partner, the automaker evaluated it like any other supplier, and the first assessment yielded a score of 30 out of 100. From there, 360 Energy formalized and certified its environmental, social and integrity management, a standard that international financing now demands from it as well, and one that the company itself passes on to its own suppliers.

From diagnosis to workshop: where to start

The event continued with a hands-on workshop on ESG risks, aimed at helping each company identify its own starting point and the first concrete steps to take. It highlighted these key tools:

• A brief, anonymous self-assessment covering the four risk areas currently evaluated across any value chain: human rights, labor standards, environment and integrity.

• Mapping of both the company's own risks and those of its value chain, with a code of conduct, written procedures and staff training as the first mitigation measures. Risk never reaches zero, but each measure reduces it.

• Building verifiable evidence, records, documentation and monitoring, since the various frameworks currently in force require managing, documenting and demonstrating compliance.

With Mendoza Competitiva, the Mendoza Chamber of Commerce made clear that attracting investment is only half the problem: the other half is ensuring local companies are able to work with that investment. For the institution, preparing Mendoza's value chain for these demands is the most concrete way to talk about competitiveness and turn uncertainty into a roadmap.