'Mexico was
THE MAXIMUM
CHALLENGE FOR ME...'
20
talking heads
What's NewS Issue 11 December 1997
If RICO made anything clear it was the ongoing international
professionalization of our organization. One of the decisions
taken at this global conference was the establishment of a task
force to support starting international offices. In Mexico, Frits
Mönking started the old way - in a hotel room with a
telephone, fax and secretary 'who, fortunately, is still with the
bank'. He explains how they've built it from there.
It's not that long ago that
Mönking and his wife Marlot
packed their suitcase, picked up
a one-way ticket to Mexico City
and a bundie of petty cash for
initial operating expenses and
left for the airport back in
September 1993. If this all
sounds a rather ad hoe
arrangement for Rabobank
International's thrust into the
global world of banking and
finance, it appears to work quite
successfully. 'It took six months
to get all the necessary licences,'
he recalls. 'According to the
stories, we set up pretty much in
the same way as New York did
in the early 1980s. Maybe it
sounds a bit free and easy, but
that's one of Rabobank's
strengths, at least I think so.
This bank gives you room to
manoeuvre.'
The room to manoeuvre in
Mexico meant Mönking and his
very small team had to weather
the Peso devaluation in 1994
'just as we were about to close
our first deal'. At the time, he
was concerned, but no more
than that. 'We'd been marketing
to the top food and agri-
corporates - we're exclusively an
F&A office - in a selected
number of sectors. In the early
stages, we contacted every
chamber of commerce in the
country because we'd discovered
that they had a mass of basic
research information we could
use to create benchmarks for
targeting clients - and the
information is basically free.
This led us to define 26 separate
sectors and to market to them
systematically. As I said, we
were just about to sign up our
first customer, a major sugar
corporate, when the Peso
crashed.'
Although initially Mönking's
very small team thought they
would lose the deal, they quickly
understood that Rabobank was
willing to put its money where
its mouth is. 'And our future
clients also came to understand
that,' he recalls. 'No one was
interested in Mexico then even
though sound corporates were
screaming for support. The
bank's policy is clear, you stick
with clients wherever possible.
That did us a lot of good in the
Mexican market. And that
poultry company is still one of
our best customers. It's
philosophies like this, if they
work and they certainly work
for us, that create win-win
situations.'
So much good, in fact, that the
Mexico City team's goal of
becoming the country's top
F&A bank is, in some sectors,
already a reality after just three
years of real operation. 'We
couldn't have done it without
APFT, though,' he is quick to
add. 'The APFT people have
done a lot of the time-
consuming work leaving our
four marketing teams to do
what they're good at -
marketing.' Mexico is already
structured along matrix lines
with product people - APFT,
corporate finance and banking -
working alongside the
relationship managers. Mönking
believes it inakes sense,
especially in a small office. Fle
himself worked in the Port of
Rotterdam for the bank in the
late 1980s as a transport
specialist before switching to
F&A. 'From a purely personal
perspective, I made that decision
so that I'd have an opportunity
to travel - F&A is a very
exportable kind of know-how.
When 1 heard Mexico could be
an opportunity, 1 rushed home
and discussed it with the family.
Frits Mönking: 'this bank gives you room to manoeuvre.'
Once they said okay, I rushed to
head office and asked for the iAh
job.'
According to Mönking,
Mexico represented a very
personal challenge to him. 'It
was the maximum challenge
for me. A new and very big
country, a very different culture
to the US and European styles I
was used to through working
for Chase and Credit Lyonnais
before joining Rabobank. It
was clearly a Latino business
environment, but because of
the proximity to the US and the
trading relations, it is a mixture
of both cultures.' What he
admires about the Mexican
style of doing business is that it
is extremely flexible. The
people, he reckons, are masters
of improvisation and have an
ability to remain relaxed that
has little to do with the
'manana' cliché. Tm from
Rotterdam,' he says.
'Rotterdammers are said to be
straight talking and hard
working. In fact, there's a
Dutch saying that in the
Netherlands the money is made
in Rotterdam, spent in
Amsterdam and administered
in The Flague. We certainly
don't have a reputation for
improvisation. Even in the face
of devaluation,
I was impressed by how people
tackled this real set back.'
The devaluation was a learning
experience for both potential
clients, personnel and Mönking
himself. 'I'd always been
convinced of the relevance of
the cooperative system and it
proved its relevance here in the
Mexican market in late 1994
and early 1995. Since then
we've built market leading
positions in sugar, poultry, eggs
and maybe in a few months
we'11 be able to add dairy to
that list. Our exclusive focus has
really helped. But we now feel
it's time to move into health
care. Dick Schultz, who has
done so much to start-up this
sector in various offices around
the world, will be doing a
market study in Mexico. But
we're already convinced this
will be a very good market for