It’s time to acknowledge a paradigm shift.
The past year, countless businesses have been forced to hybridize and add online capabilities like e-commerce in order to survive, and and business process outsourcing (BPO) has undergone a similar evolution.
While the skill of the population, ease of doing business, and state of the originating nation are still important markers for finding the “best” outsourcing countries, these alone are not competitive anymore, with more and more businesses requiring a full suite backed by artificial intelligence and automated processes.
That said, certain favorites for outsourcing have found themselves falling off the ranking, with emerging regions taking their place to form a new list for the top 5 countries for BPO services:
- Ukraine
Ukraine has been a notable powerhouse in the outsourcing industry as far back as 2010, consistently placing as one of the top outsourcing destinations in the region. Though its claim to fame has mostly been through SMBs instead of large enterprises, the expected trend of SMBs creating more opportunity in the outsourcing industry makes it the prime time for Ukraine to take hold of greater market share.
- India
While recent events have renewed privacy concerns when outsourcing to the country, it still ranks as the foremost digital nation in Tholons’ 2020 Global Innovation Country Index. It won’t be easy to topple the outsourcing empire that India has built, or at least it will take more to negate the trust built by its 14 Super Cities and the fact that it services half of the Global 500.
- Poland
At large, Europe’s outsourcing market is booming in no small part because of their technical expertise, easy communication, prices that are the very definition of “bang for your buck”, and the relatively smaller time difference.
Poland is no exception. The opposite of Ukraine, most Polish IT talent find themselves employed by tech giants, with only 20% employed in the 700 dedicated outsourcing companies in the country. Still, 20% of some 295,000 experts isn’t a bad estimate.
- Brazil
Where Ukraine is a favorite of the U.K. for its more easily accessible time difference, Brazil holds the same advantage for U.S. companies by being just 2 hours ahead.
Brazil has recently enforced the Brazilian Data Protection Law over outsourced data as well. The fact that the country ranks third in the Tholons index and has consistently been the top outsourcing destination in Latin America only makes its value proposition more attractive.
- Philippines
Along with India, the Philippines is one of the nations hardest hit by the pandemic. That said, the sheer cost and amount of outsourced labor in the Philippines and the fact that it ranks sixth in the Tholons index can’t be denied. In place of BPO agencies, there’s a budding freelancer market which might just be more appealing for SMBs looking to outsource.
COVID has thrown industries in for a loop, with almost every business including outsourcing agencies forced to adopt technologies at tenfold the speed.
Finding the best source country for your business requires further evaluation on your needs: whether you need automation or labor, an agency or freelancer, or whether you need to prioritize cost versus efficiency.