RP no longer competes with India alone in outsourcing
By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 07:54:00 07/09/2008
Filed Under: Economy, Business & Finance
MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippines is still in the list of most-recommended outsourcing destinations but it may no longer be just India that it has to compete against as many more countries improve, based on a new industry report.
The Philippines was seventh among top 10 offshore locations recommended by users based on current and past experience, according to this year's Black Book outsourcing report.
Ahead of the Philippines in the list are "rural and small-town" US, India, Eastern and Central Europe, UK and Ireland, South America and Mexico.
The report also states that the trend toward outsourcing call center work to India, Philippines and South Africa is waning, and that Central and Eastern Europe is now a favorite location.
HP tops this year's Black Book report, conducted by US-based Brown Wilson Group, which lists the top 50 outsourcing vendors in the world. Nearly 25,000 outsourcers participated in this year's customer surveys.
The results reflected the significant decline of India in the standings -- and the rise of US-based vendors like HP along with Perot Systems, CSC, Unisys and EDS in the top five.
In 2004 survey, half of the top 50 vendors were based in India. This year, there are only 10 Indian companies in the top 50 and nowhere near is Infosys, a former outsourcing powerhouse that has suffered in the standings due to dwindling performance in satisfaction surveys.
Last year, half of the companies in the top 10 were from India. This year, Wipro, Satyam and Genpact placed sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.
The report noted the emergence of "reverse outsourcing," or outsourcing jobs moving back to the US courtesy of Indian companies setting up operations in the US.
"Not only will the US centers provide closer proximity and enhance services to clients, the facilities will also enable the outsourcing firms to draw from the local talent pools," according to the report's executive summary.
The reverse outsourcing development is too new for Indian companies to point to actual cost savings yet, but moving front office processes closer to the client is fast attracting buyer interest, the report added.
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