Manila dislodges Mumbai as 2nd top outsourcing destination

MANILA, Philippines – Manila is now the world’s second most important place for business process outsourcing, dislodging Mumbai from the position, according to the Tholons Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations for 2014.

India’s Bangalore continued to occupy the top spot.

Seven other Philippine cities were listed in the Top 100 rankings while Manila and Cebu were in the Top 10 of the Tholons list.

Cebu managed to keep the 8th spot in the global ranking.

Davao City moved up one notch to 69th in the 2014 rankings from 70th in the 2013 rankings while Sta. Rosa, Laguna moves two places to 82nd.

Likewise, Bacolod improved one notch to 93rd from 94th while the ranking of Iloilo slipped to 95th from 93rd. Baguio City managed to cling to its 99th ranking.

Cities in India continued to dominate the top 10 with Bangalore continuing to occupy the top spot, Mumbai (3rd), Delhi (4th), Chennai (5th), Hyderabad (6th), and Pune (7th). The cities of Krakow (9th) in Poland and Dublin (10th) in Ireland completed the Top 10 list.

Since its inception in 2006, the Tholons Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations report has been one of the flagship projects of Tholons and is acknowledged by industry stakeholders as the de facto ranking of outsourcing cities around the world.

Science and Technology Undersecretary Louis Casambre attributed the improvement in the rankings of the five Next Wave Cities or cities outside of Metro Manila to the development of the required ecosystem to support the Information and Business Process Management (IT-BPM).

Casambre, who also heads the agency’s Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO), pointed out that the goal of the DOST and the IT – Business Process Association of the Philippines (iBPAP) is to develop globally preferred outsourcing destinations outside Metro Manila.

“Our goal for 2016 is to add three more cities from the Philippines in the top 100,” he said.

Emmy Lou Delfin, manager of the Next Wave Cities Program, said the government continued to promote the industry to countryside stakeholders and students in nine cities and provinces through the Next Wave Cities Road show last year.

She said the last stop of the road show last year was Rizal wherein the province’s ICT Council vowed to help develop an ecosystem supporting the local IT-BPM Industry.

“We have been getting a lot of support for the Next Wave Cities Program; from local ICT councils, local government units, the academe, to regional offices of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and DOST, together iBPAP and we intend to maintain our efforts in bringing inclusive growth to the countryside,” Delfin added. –Lawrence Agcaoili (The Philippine Star)