RP among world’s top 30 offshoring sites – survey

Research firm Gartner Inc. has chosen the Philippines as one of the world’s 30 top offshoring destinations, mostly due to the country’s attractive labor costs.

According to Gartner, the Philippines was rated as “very good” in terms of cost, along with China, India, Pakistan and Thailand. The same study, however, said the Philippines performed weakly in terms of political stability and economic environment.

The Philippine BPO industry employs around 300,000 workers and generates almost $5 billion revenues as of 2007. Industry experts are targeting $13 billion revenues and a million workers in 2010.

The Gartner study said India remains the world’s top offshoring leader but countries such as China, Russia and Brazil are providing credible alternatives. The study also said South America is becoming an attractive proposition for the US, the largest buying market for offshore services, because of the region’s Spanish speaking skills.

Gartner judged the locations on language, government support, labor pool, infrastructure, educational system, cost, political and economic environment, cultural compatibility, global and legal maturity, and data and intellectual property security and privacy.

“The aim of the study was not to rank each country, as every organization will have a different view of which factors are the most important for their needs, but rather help sourcing managers determine which locations are right for their organizations,” said Ian Marriott, research vice-president at Gartner.

Four countries — Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Uruguay — dropped out of the Top 30 and were replaced by Egypt, Morocco, Panama and Thailand.

The study said the higher-cost locations of Australia, New Zealand and Singapore all led the rating not only in this category, but also for cultural compatibility, global and legal maturity, and data and intellectual property security and privacy, proving that the link between lower risk and higher cost holds true.

Here is the list of 30 countries, by region:

Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama.

Asia/Pacific: Australia, China, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA): The Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain and Ukraine.