How we score your answers.
The self-check is not an oracle, it is arithmetic. Here it is in full: which questions count, how many points there are and which rules apply before the total. Trust is good, doing the maths yourself is better.
Ten criteria, two questions each
The ten criteria follow the questions a market entry depends on in practice: which information matters, which assumptions may be wrong, whom you can trust, how the market works, what is culturally different, what has to happen on the ground, what leadership needs to understand, what local stakeholders expect, where the commercial opportunity is and where the risk really sits.
The right information
- Do you know which three to five figures decide your success in Mexico, such as cost per hour, freight, duties, or ramp-up time?
- Does your information on Mexico come from current, dated sources rather than headlines and trade-fair conversations?
Your assumptions
- Have you checked your key assumptions, for example on labour costs, ramp-up time, and prices, with someone who works in Mexico?
- Do your numbers still work if the ramp-up takes twice as long as planned?
Trust on the ground
- Do you have at least one contact in Mexico who is not trying to sell you something?
- Do you know how to vet partners, advisers, and service providers on the ground before you sign?
How the market works
- Do you know how your industry buys in Mexico: who decides, on what payment terms, by which criteria?
- Do you know whether a direct competitor is already on the ground?
Cultural differences
- Is your team prepared for decisions in Mexico often being made in person, with trust coming before the contract?
- Does someone on your team have experience negotiating in Mexico or Latin America, preferably in Spanish?
What has to happen on the ground
- Do you know whether you need sales, assembly, or manufacturing on the ground?
- Do you know the product standards in Mexico (NOM, Normas Oficiales Mexicanas) and the effort to meet them?
Your leadership
- Does your management know how long a market entry in Mexico realistically takes and what it costs?
- Is the market entry budgeted, with a person accountable at management level?
Local expectations
- Do you know what customers, employees, and authorities in Mexico expect from a foreign company, such as presence, Spanish, and fast answers?
- Are you prepared to put someone on the ground with real decision-making authority?
The commercial opportunity
- Can you name at least three existing customers who already manufacture or buy in Mexico?
- Have you had an enquiry from Mexico or North America in the last 12 months that you could not serve?
Where the risk really sits
- Do you know which two or three risks really threaten your plan, such as power, skilled staff, or rules of origin, and do you have an answer for each?
- Does your offer still hold if a local competitor is 30% cheaper?
Points
Every answer earns points. Each criterion can reach at most 4 points, 40 in total.
- Yes: 2 points
- Partly: 1 point
- No: 0 points
- Don’t know: 0 points, but it is counted
How the result is built
Question-mark rule
More than ten “Don’t know” answers: result “Information problem”. If you don’t know too much, you don’t have a Mexico problem, you have an information problem. That can be solved before anyone spends money.
Points to resolve
A criterion with zero points does not change the result. It is flagged as a point to resolve before you enter the market. That is exactly where we help.
Total score
If the question-mark rule does not apply, the total decides:
- 26 to 40 points: Move now
- 14 to 25 points: Monitor with a trigger
- 0 to 13 points: Deprioritise deliberately
From five results to three outcomes
Every Senda assessment ends in “Go,” “Not yet,” or “No-Go.” This is how the self-check results translate:
| Result | Direction | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Move now | Towards “Go” | Your risk is lost time, not misallocated capital. The next step is a robust entry plan, not another market study. |
| Monitor with a trigger | Towards “Not yet” | Set a dated trigger that forces a decision, such as a customer enquiry or a competitor on the ground. Otherwise monitoring turns into quietly doing nothing. |
| Deprioritise deliberately | Towards “No-Go” | Putting Mexico on hold is a good decision if it is made deliberately. Review the situation when something moves at your customers. |
| Information problem | Clarify first | You answered more than ten questions with “Don’t know”. That is not a Mexico problem but an information problem, and it can often be solved within a few weeks. |
What the self-check cannot do
- It is a self-assessment. It measures how ready your company is, not how good the market is.
- The thresholds are an estimate by Senda's experts, based on practice, not a statistically calibrated scale.
- It is not legal or tax advice.
- It does not replace the conversation. Over Coffee and Cake we test your result against the reality of your segment.
Your data
Your browser calculates the result. Your answers only leave the page if you ask for the result by email. Our server then recalculates it with exactly this method, so the PDF never depends on the browser.
Methodology V8 · As of October 2026 · Austreberto De Gyves García and Janek Metz