Blog Assignment: Social Network Analysis (SNA) could empower flower production in Mexico

My name is Alfredo Guadarrama and I’m originally from Mexico City. I recently took Professor’s Tunnard course on social network analysis and was surprised on how powerful this tool can be. I lived for a long time close to Mexico City in the State of Mexico. More specifically, in a city called Toluca. During my life there, I had the opportunity to interact a lot with rural communities in the region.

These communities lack on resources that allow them to progress as a society. Education is poor, health resources are insufficient, infrastructure is deficient and people in these communities appear to be content with their situation. They are mainly content because they have not had a chance in the past to see how progress could look for them.

Poor education has limited society to learn and understand how business works and how to network with people to make things happen. I had the chance to spend some time in a small town called Villa Guerrero. This town is beautiful, with lots of beautiful ranges, mountains, scenic routes and kind people. This place is the largest flower producer in Mexico.

Villa Guerrero, State of Mexico

You drive in its roads and you can see many hothouses inserted in the mountains. Inside these hothouses, the community is producing high-quality flowers that are mainly distributed in the Mexican territory. The problem is that distribution in foreign countries is still very limited.

Hothouse in Villa Guerrero

The main problem is the lack of a connection between foreign distributors and local producers. For example, the U.S. flower market is worth $19 Billion dollars per year, Mexico only sold $3 Billions of this quantity in 2000. Data and information is very limited. Local producers use paper and pencil in their every day activities. They don’t have a clear customer base, they simply go to the local market and sell their merchandise to other individuals or companies.

So what is needed to empower these producers?

Information is needed. Surveying people could be the key on identifying success strategies to improve the flower market in Mexico. Getting data from local producers, and distributors in Mexico and foreign countries, flower end consumers, governments and logistics third parties could be used as input information to execute a social network analysis (SNA). This may be expensive to do, but don’t forget this is a $19 Billion dollars industry in the U.S. The main consumers of flowers are Texas, Florida, New York, and California.

If this analysis was done, one of the most interesting measures to follow could be density to see the current number of connections in this network and the number of potential ones. 

On the other hand, centrality metrics could also be done. Those nodes with a high eigenvector and betweeness (well connected nodes to other well-connected nodes / coordinators) could be those in charge of coordinating local producer’s communications with foreign distributors. Or, nodes with a high degree (node with most connections) could be those in charge of coordinating different producers to produce the required product, at the desired quality, and have it ready at the right time.

Other factors should be considered as well when doing the survey. Is people involved in this network to pay a fair price to producers? If this is not taken into consideration, people in this local community will not benefit from this at all.

So what is next?

This could become a first success case on how social network analysis could be used to develop an industry in an emerging economy such as Mexico. It could be applied to the crafts industry, fashion industry, agriculture, etc. Possibilities are endless and real efficiencies in these industries could be achieved. The result would be very positive, communities would have access to development opportunities.

-Alfredo Guadarrama, Hult International Business School