Bankruptcy, Microsoft and Jordan sneakers: The story of how Global Containers, a company founded by Hispanics, was saved

José Ochoa embodies the description of a Hispanic entrepreneur in the United States: hardworking, ambitious and dreamy. Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, José was clear that his life would revolve around manufacturing and packaging, so he began studying industrial engineering in manufacturing at the Technological Institute of Chihuahua I and II.

Paying for his studies and surviving during his college years was no easy task, José began his working life at a young age, selling fruit and working in construction in hot Ciudad Juárez during his summer vacations.

José told Voz Media that he worked in a company owned by one of his aunts, a successful local businesswoman. With what he earned in those months, he paid for his living expenses as a student.

He finally graduated as an engineer in 2001, but the job market was difficult and he went more than a year without getting a job in his field. He had a stint as a filter salesman that allowed him to survive. Later, he moved to Ciudad Juárez, where after a few months he was able to get his first job as a packaging engineer at Delphi Automotive Systems, one of the largest suppliers to General Motors and other car companies.

It was in this job that he met a partner with whom he started his first business and understood his current niche in the market.

"I struggled a lot, I even cried to try to understand how Delphi works, the whole supply chain, how the automotive industry worked and the development chain. Fortunately, I had a mentor, my boss, Angel Vargas, who believed in me and gave me the opportunity to learn together with him," José told Voz Media.

From Delphi, José moved to a German automotive company, Siemens VDO, where he helped the company save money and improve packaging engineering. Then, fate led him to co-found his own company: Global Containers & Custom Packaging Inc.

The birth of Global Containers

José explained that he and his former partner detected a market opportunity after having problems with suppliers in the packaging industry. They founded the company in 2008, in Mexico, and a year later they arrived in the United States.

"They never met the agreed times, the attention to detail was not the best and sometimes it was frustrating. We had that niche to exploit. It was an opportunity and we took it," Jose said.

Global Containers entered the business to exploit the knowledge of its leaders in packaging engineering, logistics and supply chain, reducing packaging costs, improving designs, raising the level of service by paying attention to transport details and distributing merchandise, explained the co-founder of the company.

Then, as they grew, they added talent to their ranks and created a team committed to the vision of becoming recognized as the most reliable option in the regional market.

One of the first customers to whom they sold their services as a packaging supplier was HP. HP would ship its refurbished equipment to Ciudad Juarez so Global Containers & Custom Packaging Inc. could deliver its packaging materials and manage the right inventory levels for on-time delivery of tablets and laptops. Today, HP remains a Global Containers customer.

Another important client of the company is Amazon, which José described as "very efficient" and which led the company to improve its own quality standards.

"We have several years with Amazon and they are very demanding, but we have an incredible staff here in El Paso who have been with us for many years. We have almost no turnover, we have 25 employees and the person who has worked the least amount of time has been with us for 7 years," said José.

The fall

After a decade of success, gaining important clients, making its way into an aggressive market and employing several families, Global Containers suffered one of its strongest blows in September 2018: the bankruptcy of its main client, Technology Solutions.

"Overnight our biggest client no longer had money and owed us a lot: almost a million dollars and that almost took us out of business," José revealed to Voz Media. "At that moment we backed down; We rethink our market value proposition and restructure our processes to make them more efficient. But the blow was very hard. Obviously, we as owners stopped receiving a large part of our income so as not to run any employee and, in fact, no one was fired."

Even so, José stressed that there were very difficult times when it would have been easy to throw in the towel. But he wasn't ready to let go of his entrepreneurial dream.

The resurgence

While they had managed to survive bankruptcy, the situation was not the best for the company and José claimed to be a believer in "continuing education."

He highlighted the benefits of taking courses and reading about his niche market to be able to apply new ideas and knowledge to his business.

This is how at the beginning of 2019, after suffering a loss of one million dollars, José found on LinkedIn an announcement that Microsoft had invested a lot of money in a binational business acceleration program for suppliers in the manufacturing industry.

"I signed up, we stopped paying some bills because it was a $2,500-$3,000 enrollment fee, plus the commitment – if we were accepted – that I would be full-time twice a week, for three months, in the binational courses with experts learning how to accelerate our company," Ochoa said.

According to José, enrollment in the course was not only due to the fact that Microsoft's program looked ideal for the company but also because it was vital to change "the mood and narrative" of Global Containers. He also involved his staff in the program and he pledged "to make things work for the sake of our future."

The idea of the program was to apply the tools given by Microsoft's acceleration program in real-time, bring the results and then update the value proposition to the market in a brief presentation to Microsoft, the manufacturing industry and government executives of Texas and Chihuahua.

"We were selected as the best market value proposition among 11 selected companies out of 33 that had signed up," said a proud Ochoa.

Michael Jordan in José's life

José told Voz Media that one of his major inspirations is basketball player Michael Jordan "for his passion, leadership and indomitable strength on the field." He tries to replicate that in the business world.

"I was always a fan of retro shoes and that last day, of the presentation, I wore some intense red Jordan, in honor of my favorite player, which had worked for me in some conferences," said José saying how he faced a presentation that would change the path of the company. "I felt empowered, the presentation was incredible, and a few weeks later, after Microsoft gave us $25,000 in prize money and a better prize in exposure and recognition, I asked Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, to sign my shoes and take some pictures to have them on display at our company."

That photo of José, Smith and the Jordans appeared in nothing more and nothing less than the What Inspires Me section of the famous magazine Entrepreneur with a brief account of how Global Containers & Custom Packaging Inc. managed to survive the bankruptcy of their main client.

After the Microsoft program, our luck changed for the better. Global Containers improved and added processes that needed to be perfected while leveraging its strengths to grow the company. It reinvented itself. From there, they attracted great clients. José managed to relate to important people in the business world, even making great friendships with personalities such as Joe Foster, founder of Reebok.

"Today I can tell you two things: from 2021 onwards were the best years of our company and the best thing that could happen to us was the bankruptcy of our main client," José said. "Every time I give mentoring talks to young entrepreneurs I tell them that I did a million-dollar master's degree in business. The most expensive masters of life. But that was the starting point of change after 11 years, and improving our company. They don't have to pay for that internship but learn the lesson through experience."

Now José Ochoa can say that, in addition to moving his business forward, he also helps other entrepreneurs fight to grow their own.

In 2021 he published a book, titled "Get in the ring!: An entrepreneur's guide to the p.... e real world", which is available in English for everyone. It is a text where José draws "a parallel between what it takes to succeed in business and success in the boxing ring."

Likewise, Ochoa recently launched a methodological masterclass so that small companies can start being suppliers of giant corporations. Something similar to what happened to Global Containers itself in its beginnings.