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India
tops ranking in BPO sweepstakes : 2005 AT Kearney
survey
While
India, China and Southeast Asia continue to dominate A T
Kearney's annual ranking of the most attractive locations for
'offshoring' of service activities such as IT, business
processes and call centres, the United States ranks
surprisingly well in a new version of the
index.
For
2005, the global management consulting firm added four
lower-cost cities in the United
States, United Kingdom,
Germany and
France to determine
how they compare to more traditional offshore locations across
the 40 measurements analysed to create the Global Services
Location index (previously known as the Offshore Location
Attractiveness index). The US, represented by San
Antonio, ranked 11th out of the 40
countries evaluated.
Some
highlights:
·India remains the
best offshore location by a wide margin, although wage
inflation and the emergence of lower-cost countries decreased
its overall lead.
·Improved
infrastructure and relevant people skills have increased the
attractiveness of China as a low-cost
option for servicing Asian
markets.
·Southeast
Asian countries now make up four of the top six locations on
the index. Malaysia maintains its third
position Singapore stays at fifth, the
Philippines
rises from sixth to fourth, Thailand jumps from 13th to
sixth, and Indonesia leaps
into the Index at 13th.
·Offshore
attractiveness in Europe continues to migrate eastward as
Bulgaria,
Slovakia
and Romania all enter
the index for the first time.
·The
Middle East and Africa appear to be the next frontier in
offshoring as countries such as Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and
Ghana perform well.
. For instance, companies like Dell, GE, IBM, Alcatel and
Microsoft already have built a strong presence in
Tunisia and
Morocco.
India
and China: still
dominating:
·India still leads
by a wide margin.
·The
gap between India and the second-ranked
country, China, is larger
than the gap between the next nine countries
combined.
·India's lead has
shrunk slightly compared to 2004. This is mainly due to a
slight reduction in India's financial
attractiveness, the result of wage inflation in
India
and
·The
emergence of new even lower-cost contenders such as
Ghana and
Vietnam.
China
maintains its second place ranking and partially closes the
gap with India, thanks
largely to continued improvement in its infrastructure quality
and the availability of relevant people skills. For example,
the number of development centres in China with CMM or
CMMI certifications (an industry standard for rating the
process-quality of IT development centres) showed the largest
increase of any country in the index, jumping from 108 in 2004
to more than 277 in 2005.
Malaysia
has augmented investment in world-class infrastructure along
the multimedia super-corridor, with further incentives for
corporations choosing to locate in Malaysia and
additional policies to open up the labour pool and deepen
English language and technical skills throughout the
population.
According
to Bell, the good news is that
competition is encouraging many countries to take a hard look
at their education systems and infrastructure. That ultimately
raises productivity and prosperity in all
locations.
In
Malaysia
and Singapore, the government
promotion policies continue to pay off, the report says,
adding that given its high-wage levels, Singapore has
deliberately positioned itself as a safe location for
sensitive high-end activities, with a particular emphasis on
business continuity, IP protection and data
privacy.
The
Philippines,
despite continuing political instability and infrastructure
weaknesses, continues to benefit from the global exposure and
English language skills of its workforce. Thailand enjoys the
biggest rise in this year's
Index. | 
