Move Over, India: The Shifting Geography of Offshore Outsourcing Creates New Challengers

Informit.com
The consultants at A.T. Kearney who compile a widely followed annual survey of the world's actual and potential off-shore locations for business-process outsourcing (BPO) expect to make some changes for 2005. The most remarkable of the changes is likely to be a quantum leap in the number of countries vying for this back-office work, which increasingly is being outsourced by U.S., Western European and Japanese companies. The 2004 survey ranked 25 countries - a list led by BPO pioneer India - based on three broad categories - people skills and availability; business environment, and financial structure - and a variety of sub-categories. As many as 40 countries are being considered for next year's list, says Janet Pau, policy analyst in Alexandria, Va., for A.T. Kearney's Global Business Policy Council, a roundtable for corporate chief executives. more...