Filed under: Other Outsourcing Destinations, Outsourcing in the News, Uncategorized
Global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney just released their Global Services Location Index (GSLI), which ranks the most attractive destinations for offshoring. Vietnam cracked the top 10 for the first time, leaping ahead 9 spots from 2007 to land alongside perennial powerhouses India, China, and Malaysia. Though the top three players haven’t changed, the report notes that there’s been a significant trend away from Eastern Europe towards the Middle East and Africa.
You can read A.T. Kearney’s article here or download the full report, “The Shifting Geography of Offshoring”, here.
KPMG, an international accounting and professional services firm (they’re part of the ”Big 4″ auditing firms alongside Ernst & Young, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and Deloitte) has just published a report titled “Exploring Global Frontiers”, on emerging BPO destinations. Ho Chi Minh City was listed among cities like Brisbane, Australia and Boise, Idaho as promising alternatives to more traditional locations in India or China.
According to the report, reasons to look to cities in the Asia Pacific region include “[...] younger populations, plenty of government incentives and the lessons learned from the numerous outsourcing centers which already dot the region.”
Check out the article in our News section or click here to download “Exploring Global Frontiers” as a pdf.
Filed under: Advantages/Disadvantages of Outsourcing/BPO, Other Outsourcing Destinations, Outsourcing in the News
There’s been a slew of outsourcing articles in the past week, resulting from Brown-Wilson Group’s annual Black Book of Outsourcing, which identifies the 50 best-managed global outsourcing vendors.
Here are a few that we found interesting:
Critics Challenge Outsourcing Rankings, BusinessWeek:
“Brown & Wilson Group’s principals defend their way of doing business. Scott Wilson and Doug Brown say their survey, which results in multiple rankings, is the world’s most independent and objective rating of outsourcers.”
Report: India losing grip on outsourcing ecosystem, ZDnet:
“Despite their slide on the list, Indian players remain a major force in the outsourcing industry, and outsourcers in China are still nowhere close to replacing them.”
Philippines tries to edge out India for U.S. outsourcing jobs, Christian Science Monitor:
“The BPO market [in the Philippines] has grown by nearly 50 percent a year in the past three years alone, generating nearly $5 billion in revenue last year. That’s still only a fraction of the business that India – the global market leader – captures.”
Outsourcing Looks Closer to Home, Wall Street Journal:
“As the world becomes smaller, companies are no longer considering moving offshore as the most cost-effective and efficient way to outsource, but instead are asking: what does the business demand? This transformation means outsourcing is seen as less of a crutch for the technically deficient or work-force challenged company, and more of a strategic tool. ‘It is becoming a matter of looking at the world as a marketplace of skills and products and deciding what gets done where the best.’”
How Offshoring Affects Customer Satisfaction, Wall Street Journal:
“If a company can save more by sending customer service overseas, it will have more opportunity to devote at least some of that money to upgrading its business.
In addition to considering whether or not to offshore customer service, companies should consider whether back-office functions such as information technology may be suitable for offshoring. Our study found that back-office offshoring had no effect on overall customer satisfaction. So the savings a company garners this way aren’t offset by dissatisfaction among customers.”
We’re always interested to hear which cities are moving up or down the list of top outsourcing destinations. It’s no suprise that Indian cities still rank highest, as reported today in BusinessWeek: India Still Top Choice for Offshoring. What’s interesting to note is that China is catching up. For a host of reasons, including the appreciating rupee, infrastructure improvements in anticipation of the upcoming Olympics, and government support, some expect China to become the top outsourcing destination as soon as 2011.
