< Previous64 MAY 2021 SITE SELECTION said Charlie Noel, vice president of International Operations at MicroVention. “Our success in Costa Rica has allowed MicroVention to grow in what is our third expansion in the country. Today our strategic vision drives us to close 2022 with nearly 35,000 square meters [376,750 sq. ft.) in manufacturing areas and 3,000 employees. We are very proud to export medical products from Costa Rica all over the world, in addition to helping patients have a better quality of life.” At the announcement, Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado, who weeks before had held a meeting with senior officials of the company, thanked them for their confidence. After reiterating the government’s support for FDI and the Free Trade Zone regime, Alvarado saluted the great impact that a third plant and 2,000 more jobs will have on quality employment, and highlighted the inter-institutional work that has been carried out, and that will be strengthened with a new law designed to train Costa Ricans so that they have greater opportunities to enter the labor market. Through that law, CINDE, the National Training Institute (INA) and the companies of the Costa Rican life science cluster are pursuing a joint training initiative that already provided training in strategic areas for 500 employees of medical companies, boosting their professional development and the country’s competitiveness. Employees from Allergan, Bayer, Boston Scientific, CooperVision, Edwards, Freudenberg, Moog, Nellipak, Philips and Tegra were trained in medical manufacturing, occupational health, waste management and first aid. The majority of training was provided virtually. Digital Opportunity That’s not the only human resources tool at companies’ disposal. Recently the Code Recruitment and Training Institute together with Coyol Free Zone founded the Coyol Academy project, a digital platform that gives people the opportunity to train on issues related to the medical industry from the comfort of their homes and with any type of device (cell phone, tablet or computer). “Academia Coyol offers its first digital course for people who wish to opt for the position of Manufacturing Operator in Coyol Free Zone,” said Carolina Zamora, manager of After-Sales Services at Coyol Free Zone. This course will provide them with knowledge that can influence their performance and generate many successes in their hiring processes.” The first course, “Introduction to the Medical Device Industry,” is now available at Academia Coyol, and those who complete it 100% and pass the evaluations are given the opportunity to remain in a database available to all park companies. “The year 2020 was an extremely challenging one, and the pandemic impacted countries, companies, entrepreneurs, and all people in general,” observed Costa Rica Minister of Foreign Trade Andrés Valenciano. “However, one of the great tasks we have faced has been how to turn those threats into opportunities. Today, Coyol Free Zone shows us how to adapt to this new normal and provide opportunities for growth and training to many people. Likewise, we highlight the importance of Costa Ricans being able to continue on the path of constant and permanent learning, as well as seeking learning opportunities to enter the knowledge economy. We strongly urge people to enroll in these programs and enhance their employability possibilities through free, quality online training.” Coyol Free Zone also is working with FUNDATEC to bring to virtuality a series of courses that will be focused on acquiring new applied knowledge in the medical industry. Coyol Free Zone holds a strong concentration of medtech companies in Costa Rica, amounting to more than $2 billion a year, accounting for 58% of exports from the country’s entire free trade zone regime’s manufacturing sector. The 2,000-job MicroVention expansion coming to Coyol Free Zone is one of Site Selection’s Top Deals of 2020. Image courtesy of MicroVention66 MAY 2021 SITE SELECTION LIFELONG LEARNING IS THE BEATING HEART OF PROSPERITY … AND RECOVERY O ver the course of , CINDE implemented a series of educational initiatives, either as the main organizer or as a partner, geared at training the talent needed for the new knowledge economy. Among the most head-turning is a partnership announced in June with the online learning company Coursera, which provided grants for , Costa Ricans. e partnership brought together one of the world’s most dynamic countries and a leading online learning platform for higher education that includes million learners and more than of the world’s top universities and industry educators. Coursera Workforce Recovery is an initiative that seeks to help unemployed individuals by providing them with free access to % of the courses and certifi cations available on the platform. e process was carried out over the balance of through an agreement with the Costa Rican government and is part of the eff orts to mitigate the impacts of COVID- while also providing training for Costa Ricans in the highest-demand areas for industry .. Areas of study included digital, strategic, and technical skills, including programming, cybersecurity, sustainability, blockchain, artifi cial intelligence, entrepreneurship, and data science, among others. ere were , courses completed in , and $, in Coursera grants awarded, based on -plus learning paths CINDE designed within Coursera based on the insights and requierements that investing companies indicated. e participation rate in the Coursera program in was %, vs. the average usage rate worldwide of .%. “ e pandemic has aff ected hundreds of millions of jobs around the world, including the livelihoods of many Costa Ricans,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera, last summer. “We are proud to partner with President Alvarado, CINDE, the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs to provide displaced workers with access to job- relevant skills needed to reenter the workforce.” “ is project is the fi rst of many we expect to carry out in collaboration with Coursera over the coming years,” said CINDE Managing Director Jorge Sequeira. “Its implementation reinforces the country’s commitment to innovate and provide a favorable climate for local and foreign investment, with a human talent trained both in digital areas and in strategic skills for employability.” “According to the World Economic Forum, Costa Rica is the Latin American leader for human capital ratios and digital skills, which make the successful implementation of platforms like Coursera a natural fi t,” said CINDE. “In addition, the country stands out for its dynamic ecosystem of multinational companies and local businesses, which together promote skill- development initiatives in their workforce, as a response to the current crisis.” EDUCATION & TRAINING Jeff Maggioncalda SITE SELECTION • CINDE acted as a support agency for the Innovation and Human Capital for Competitiveness Program from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications (MICITT) in the implementation of highly specialized STEM training . To date, 2,023 applications (29% women) have been received for the bootcamp program. • As part of its digital transformation talent strategy , CINDE also has launched a communications campaign to motivate professionals from a variety of companies to acquire and develop new skills in high-demand areas of the economy. There are currently 1,300 people enrolled in training. • In partnership with Fundación Gente, over 10,500 people received training on issues relating to administration, technology and education, vocational orientation and project management . Participants included board members, school principals and teachers from throughout the country. • A review of Ministry of Public Education (MEP) curriculum in professional vocational high schools validated curriculum updates for industry 4.0 in the areas of technical specialties in network technology and software. The work was performed by MEP, Fundación Omar Dengo, CINDE and the private sector, and a new technical specialization in cybersecurity was created. “In addition, an information collecting exercise is planned to identify the abilities, knowledge and skills that employers require from graduates,” says CINDE, “which will help in updating and validating study plans and technical specializations. These processes seek to ensure that students enter the workforce with an academic training that meets the latest industry requirements.” • The Smart Mentors program , a corporate volunteer program, has engaged 144 volunteers benefi ting 3,673 students. • Meanwhile, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) partnered with CINDE to provide training to the country’s rapidly expanding medical device manufacturers . • The Gender, Education and Technology (GET) program was created with the goal of promoting careers in STEAM and women’s involvement in the knowledge economy . As part of the program, Arizona State University (ASU), in collaboration with CINDE and its member multinational companies based in Costa Rica, has worked to coordinate the project Women in Engineering Projects in Community Service (WEPICS). This initiative seeks to inspire high school students to pursue careers in STEAM through an innovative project- based study plan in which they are challenged to solve real-world problems in their communities using science and engineering. A COMPLETE ACADEMIC SCHEDULE68 MAY 2021 SITE SELECTION THE TIME-PLACE CONTINUUM: COSTA RICA OPERATIONS HELP COMPANIES OUTRUN THE SUN F or year, multinationals have strategically located sites in places designed to serve internal and external customers effectively in real time, and pass things off to another time zone as the planet rotated into the next region’s work day. It was called following the sun. But when you find a strong location with the right people and infrastructure, why pass things along at all? Costa Rica today is home to over 81,000 jobs in the knowledge-intensive services sector. The country has seen $4.9 billion growth in export of knowledge-intensive services, with 98% of companies using work-from- home systems. The country was welcoming remote work and hybrid work arrangements long before a pandemic force the world’s hand to do the same. It was also welcoming a diverse array of industry sectors, which has proved fruitful in its own right. 600% Growth, More On the Way In a March 2021 webinar on near- shoring, Leonardo Framil, market unit lead, LATAM, for Accenture, spoke of the company’s first arrival in the country via an acquisition in 2012, when a single site had 300 people, mostly offering graphic design and web marketing services. “After nine years, we have increased our headcount more than 600%,” he said, noting there was no other country in Accenture’s network that’s seen growth like that. Moreover, he said, the company has 300 open positions, and expected to be at the 2,500 mark by the end of March and 3,000 people by the end of 2021. The site will be positioned soon as Accenture’s third largest Latin America operation behind only Brazil and Argentina and ahead of Mexico, Chile and Colombia. “I think there is a clear demonstration of our clients’ interest in near-shoring alternatives,” Framil said, noting more than 150 mostly virtual client visits to the Costa Rica site, which now serves more than 50 world-class corporate clients around the globe. The digital transformation of business is one overarching reason for the prodigious growth, he said, but “in the case of Costa Rica no doubt it is completely related to the quality of the human capital that allowed us through a continuous innovation mindset to evolve our operation” from traditionally starter-level services to transformational and value- added services in marketing campaigns and digital finance, among other fields. “Central Costa Rica became a global digital production center of excellence,” he said, “and we are even more bullish about the future” as the rest of the world rushes to catch up. In March, San Francisco Bay Area- based software company Autodesk announced the opening of a new Autodesk office for the Latin America region based in San Jose, Costa Rica. The new hub’s inside sales professionals and other teams will drive growth across Latin America. “We selected Costa Rica for our Latin America hub because of its global business environment and talent pool, ability to support multiple Americas languages, and its vibrant multicultural capital which offers a great quality of life for our employees,” said Morgan Kirkland, senior director of inside sales and site leader for the Americas, when the office opened. Reached by email in April, Kirkland NEAR-SHORED SERVICES Customer experience (CX) technology and solutions provider Concentrix announced this spring it is creating more than 1,000 new jobs in Costa Rica. Images courtesy of Concentrix SITE SELECTION MAY 2021 69 told me, “The Costa Rica sales initiative is a key priority for the Americas sales strategy. While a number of LATAM metropolitan markets were considered in the evaluation, Costa Rica has a proven track record supporting inside sales operations for both for LATAM and U.S. businesses. Ultimately, San José is a safe city with attractive labor costs and a strong higher education system that will expedite sales growth in the aforementioned markets.” Asked how workforce in particular was evaluated, he said, “A number of considerations were evaluated in the assessment of skills-based talent. These attributes spanned across labor costs, access to public transportation, competitor presence and density of higher education.” Costa Rica’s savvy in knowing how to manage remote work was an advantage too. “Autodesk is the midst of deploying a formalized hybrid approach,” Kirkland said. “However, the pandemic accelerated this process. The deployment of our Costa Rica sales operations allowed us to effectively recruit, hire, and retain talent during a time when many companies could not.” Finally, I asked him what he knows about Costa Rica now that he didn’t know before. He just had one thing to say: “The Costa Rica way of life,” he said. “Pura Vida.” Concentrix Likes Costa Rica Concentration of Talent In March 2021, customer experience (CX) technology and solutions provider Concentrix, which first landed in Costa Rica in 2005, announced it was creating 1,000 new jobs this spring in sales and tech support, as well as filling numerous professional and executive positions from operations managers to support engineers. “Costa Rica is consolidating itself as a strategic site for us, so in 2021 we will be on a constant lookout for staff in several cities,” said Juan Pablo Guzmán, country leader for Concentrix. “The level of job commitment and the quality customer service we found in this country led us to reinforce the local operation. We decided, at a critical moment in employment, to offer concrete solutions for reactivating the economy and open up jobs with the best market conditions.” As additional support for those wishing to work for Concentrix, the company has designed ILab, a program that helps candidates gain confidence in the use of English, giving them the possibility of being hired for bilingual accounts. The initiative, launched in November 2019 at no cost to students, has already graduated 90 people, of which 68% have started to work at Concentrix. I recently conducted this Q&A with Manfred Kissling, group vice president and GM for Latin America & Caribbean for Concentrix: What is it about your Costa Rican operations that compares favorably vs. some of the other countries in which you do business? Manfred Kissling: Costa Rica is a strategic location for us. It is a country with a long democratic tradition, a high level of education, safety and very well connected with the world, both digital and physical, and offers a wealth of talented, experienced people and leaders. It is home to some of the most important global clients Concentrix has. With the uncertainty in the world due to protectionism, safety, and health matters, over the last two years the value proposition of the country has become even stronger, allowing us to grow at the fastest pace we have for years. The strong management of the COVID pandemic in the country allowed us to keep our people and clients safe and happy. It was a great example and one of the reasons we plan to keep on investing in a country that invests in its people. We noted a 1,300-job expansion in late 2020, and now there is another 1,000-job expansion that mentions multiple cities in which you want to grow your headcount. Which cities are you looking to develop the most? Manfred Kissling: Currently we have operations in Heredia and San Jose, and we plan to keep on growing in these locations. We also have plans to leverage our proprietary Home Office Technology to grow permanent Work-At-Home in a safe and efficient way. With this and the quality of infrastructure and education across the whole country, our plan is to grow beyond the greater metro areas, bringing opportunities to people in different communities throughout the country. Tell me how the ILab program was created. Is this the type of innovation that global Concentrix might deploy at its other sites around the world? Manfred Kissling: It’s in Concentrix’s DNA to be fanatical about our customers and staff. iLAB is a program created to invest in our future Costa Rican staff. The program allows people to polish their English to improve their skills, feel better about their competence and make customers happier. It’s a win- win-win proposition for us. Our people win because we help them polish a very important skill for life, Concentrix wins because it’s one more action to show our people we walk the talk, and our clients win as we continually improve their customers’ experiences. It’s consistent with our plan to grow our business in the country. The program is already implemented in Costa Rica and Colombia. Our plan now is to expand across other countries in Latin America based on the success we have had. What do other multinationals need to know about Costa Rica’s competitive advantages that they might not know? Manfred Kissling: Let me share an anecdote. Between 2003 and 2005 I was Director of PROCOMER. That is the government institution responsible for managing the Free Trade Zones 70 MAY 2021 SITE SELECTION and helping build capacity in local companies to compete in world markets. Back then the services industry was much smaller, however the questions were the same. Well, after nearly years, the country has multiplied the industry -fold. e reason for this success relies on the education system, the access of people to the digital world and the close ties between the Costa Rica and U.S. economies. Intel Still Feels at Home Among the pioneers in near-shoring in Costa Rica was Intel, whose portfolio over the years has evolved to now employ more than , people at two large centers of excellence: the country’s largest R&D center and Intel´s only Megalab of its kind outside the USA; and a global services center that performs multifunctional business processes supporting fi nance, human resources, sales and marketing, quality and IT across the globe. Now a new chapter is set to begin. e company announced in December it will invest $ million over three years to start assembly and test operations in Costa Rica. e investment is anticipated to create more than new jobs in the coming months, and the facility will begin to operate in the second half of at the company’s campus in Heredia. It can’t come soon enough in a world now facing a semiconductor shortage. “Intel continually evaluates its operations around the world to ensure that we have the right capacity to supply global demand,” said Ileana Rojas, general manager of Intel Costa Rica, at the December announcement. “We will start the assembly and test facilities in Costa Rica to expand our global capacity so we can continue fulfi lling Intel customer’s needs. e existing infrastructure, synergy with the test operations that already exist on-site, the talent, the free trade zone regime, and legal environment gave Intel a favorable option to start its assembly capacity in Costa Rica.” “For Costa Rica, Intel symbolizes a pioneer in the high-tech industry that opened the door for many companies to establish in our country, similarly attracted by the talent of our people, our most valuable asset,” said Costa Rica Minister of Foreign Trade Andrés Valenciano. With a history of constant transformation that today translates into a diverse range of processes, the local facility is well-positioned to service the global marketplace competitively, with elevated resilience and value- added. Such high-level performance is particularly important in a challenging context driven by Industry ., and further accelerated by the COVID pandemic.” Timothy Scott Hall, manager of government aff airs and public relations at Intel Costa Rica, tells me resilience and adaptability are key characteristics of Costa Rican talent. “ ose features have allowed Intel several positive transitions, starting with manufacturing, moving to value- added services, a design center and now, having the previous three, adding manufacturing again,” he says. “Our main ingredient has been the Costa Rican human talent that has been able to adapt and be resilient during these stages.” Asked how the company is able to continue growing talent when so many other companies are also expanding there, he says simply, “Intel is the best place to work. We have a close relationship with universities in the country and have a very attractive total compensation system.” But collaboration is abundant too. “ ere are collaborative schemes, where our direct work and others through CINDE allow the private sector to unify eff orts to increase the quantity and quality of human talent required by companies,” he says. “We must continue to work in that direction, because of the growth that the local ecosystem has had.” Meanwhile, the natural ecosystem is as strong as the metaphorical one, and off ers another example of Intel and Costa Rica as a pioneering pair: e Costa Rica site is Intel’s fi rst Carbon Neutral certifi ed operation in the corporation. “Intel Corporation has Corporate Social Responsibility as an intrinsic component of the way of doing business, and we see that as a whole, not in a particular way in each of the places where we operate,” explains Hall. “ at is why we launched the RISE goals [Responsible, Inclusive, Sustainable and Enabling]. ese are global goals, which will allow us to remain a responsible corporate citizen.” e message to multinationals? A near-shoring strategy motivated by redundancy and fl exibility may quickly evolve to a multifaceted global leadership role when the location is in Costa Rica. With the uncertainty in the world due to protectionism, safety, and health matters, over the last two years the value proposition of Costa Rica has become even stronger, allowing us to grow at the fastest pace we have for years.” — Manfred Kissling, Group Vice President and GM, Latin America & Caribbean, Concentrix With the uncertainty in the world due to rkets. This Investment Report was prepared under the auspices of CINDE, the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency. For more information, visit the new CINDE website at cinde.org.Next >