What Latin America Market Entry Really Demands

For founders and commercial leaders, Latin America can look close, familiar, and tempting. But in this episode, Julio Martinez-Clark’s conversation with Michael Benzaken makes a useful correction: proximity is not a strategy.

Benzaken, introduced in the episode as the former acting chairman and CEO of Nubenco Enterprises, describes the region less as a single market than as a set of very different operating environments.

Latin America is nearby, but it is not one market

One of the most useful points in the conversation is also one of the easiest to forget. Benzaken says Latin America is convenient partly because it is close to the United States, but he quickly adds that the upside, risk, and market structure vary by country.

That matters because many expansion plans still begin with a regional map and a generic checklist. Benzaken argues for the opposite approach. Start with the specific country, then work backward from its realities: payment behavior, currency risk, market access, and whether the business model is exporting into the country or building operations inside it.

His examples make the distinction concrete. He describes Colombia and Nicaragua as very different environments. In Colombia, he emphasizes collections and currency fluctuation as serious commercial issues. In Nicaragua, he focuses more on relationships, regulatory difficulty, and the role of government in the healthcare and pharmaceutical distribution system.

That is why one of his simplest lines is also one of the strongest: "The first thing you want to do is find someone you trust." In his framing, trust is not a soft cultural extra. It is the starting point for getting reliable information about pricing, buyers, terms, and timing.

Trust is a control system, not just a relationship skill

Benzaken returns to the same theme throughout the episode, and he does so because he sees relationships as a way to reduce uncertainty. "Trust and relationships, trust and relationships..." is how he describes the pattern. He is not talking about networking for its own sake. He is talking about access to accurate, timely data from the market.

That is a helpful distinction for device and diagnostics companies that rely on distributors but still need clear visibility into what is happening on the ground. Benzaken says he wanted to know pricing data, who was purchasing, when payment could be expected, and whether local banking relationships could help reduce collection risk. In other words, a good distributor relationship should improve commercial intelligence, not hide it.

He is also skeptical of elaborate oversight structures when the underlying relationship is weak. When Julio Martinez-Clark asks about hands-off versus hybrid distributor management, Benzaken says his team rarely inserted a separate local agent to supervise a distributor. His reasoning is blunt: if you feel compelled to babysit, the real problem may be that you chose the wrong distributor.

That does not mean ignoring the business. He describes regular communication across management levels, internally and externally, because less contact means more risk. The point is that monitoring works best when it strengthens a trusted relationship instead of substituting for one.

He also gives a practical suggestion on how to find partners in the first place. Go where distributors gather. Trade events, in his view, are still better than cold lists because they let you compare several potential partners and judge who is credible, ambitious, and financially capable.

Own the registration and know your landed cost

If there is one hard rule in the episode, it is about product registration. Benzaken says: "Do not form a relationship with the distributor and give them the ownership of the registration." He follows that with an even clearer warning: "It is a con game and you will end up burned..."

That advice has obvious implications. If the exporter does not control the registration, the distributor may end up controlling access to the market itself. That can limit flexibility, make distributor changes painful, and turn a commercial disagreement into a market-access crisis. Benzaken acknowledges that countries differ in how distributors are assigned to registrations, but his principle is consistent: keep ownership of the registration on the exporter side whenever possible.

He is just as direct about pricing. Latin America, in his view, is price sensitive, so companies cannot rely on product quality alone to protect margins. They need to understand tax structure, logistics, operating overhead, and import classification. He repeatedly ties competitiveness to supply-chain design rather than sales technique.

That is especially visible in his comments on Colombia. He notes expensive ports, costly inland transport, and the financial burden of holding inventory when currencies move sharply. His advice is operational: consider holding inventory outside the country, place storage close to ports when appropriate, and do not be afraid to let logistics specialists carry part of the burden.

The broader idea is simple. Before entering a market, know whether the business still works after risk correction. If it does not, no amount of optimism will fix the model.

Regulatory harmonization could change the equation

Near the end of the episode, Benzaken points to one trend that he sees as especially promising: greater harmonization among regulatory bodies in Latin America. He references the Pacific Alliance and compares the potential effect to what the European Union did by making trade and commercialization more standardized across countries.

His optimism here is notable because much of the rest of the conversation is about friction. If regulatory requirements become more aligned, smaller distributors may be able to compete more effectively, barriers to expansion could fall, and pricing pressure could increase. In his view, that could also improve access to healthcare by increasing competition.

That is not a prediction that every market will suddenly become easy. It is a reminder that regional policy shifts can matter as much as company-level tactics. Leaders who watch only for distributor leads and tender notices may miss the structural changes that reshape the opportunity set.

Listen to the full episode

The value of this conversation is that Benzaken does not romanticize expansion. He treats Latin America as a place where relationships, registration control, logistics, and cash discipline all have to work together. If your team is weighing distributors, pricing strategy, or country sequencing, the full discussion is worth hearing on the episode page.

About Global Trial Accelerators™

Global Trial Accelerators™ is the podcast for MedTech, Biopharma and Radiopharma founders navigating first-in-human clinical trials. It is hosted by Jesús E. Moreno and produced by bioaccess®, a CRO purpose-built for first-in-human trials across the Americas.