India’s IT-BPO Industry in forefront Compared to China and Philippines

Other South and South-east Asian countries gaining market share in the global IT-BPO industry

INDIACSR News Network

New Delhi, 22nd August 2013: According to a recent report by Cushman & Wakefield, globally India continues to be the forerunner in the IT–BPO industry. However, a number of other South and South-east Asian countries are increasingly gaining share in the global IT-BPO Industry.

https://indiacsrnetwork.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/indian-it-industry.jpgIndia continues to outperform its counterparts – Philippines, China, Malaysia and other South Asian countries in the IT-BPO industry due to abundant availability of English speaking and qualified talent pool, good network infrastructure, higher cost arbitrage, rapidly growing domestic market, high quality of services delivered, reliable power network, stable political system, positive business environment that fosters Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the IT-BPO sector and global expansion of Indian IT firms.

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India’s advantage also lies in its strong domestic demand, the geographical diversity and the growth potential in Tier II and Tier III cities.

Philippines emerging as India’s competitor

While India is at the forefront in the IT industry, Philippines is emerging as India’s competitor in voice-based operations. The Philippines’ IT industry contributes around 5% to the country’s GDP and has emerged closest competition to India especially in the call centre business. The major growth of voice-based operations in the country is primarily because of the educated and English-speaking talent pool. Though it seems to be an attractive destination due to cheaper availability of talent and Government support, there are still some concerns with the market especially with regards to the higher level managerial positions and capability in software development.

China emerging as hotspot for variety of IT/BPM activities

China’s inherent capabilities in low cost manufacturing and research are helping the growth of its IT industry apart from its increasing foothold in the BPO and data center segments. But the country is finding it difficult to make it big into the global BPO services due to language constraints. Its strengths are in R&D, high-end analytics and development of advanced IT and electronic technologies which differ from India’s core prowess, thus making possible to both the countries to exploit and develop their key expertise areas.

Mr. Sanjay Dutt, Executive Managing Director – South Asia, Cushman & Wakefield “stated that, “India, China and Philippines are expected to continue building their strengths and keep pace with the technological advancements in the industry to maintain an edge over other emerging competitors in their core areas. However, India will continue to maintain its status as the ‘IT powerhouse of the region’ in the coming years due to its advancement in the sector and value for money delivery.”

“The strength of the Indian IT industry lies in its stronghold over the outsourcing industry worldwide and the rapidly growing domestic market. The Indian domestic market registered a growth of 14.1% year on year while the exports grew by 10.2% year on year. Apart from the key cities, in India Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India such as Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kochi are amongst others offer significant growth potential and provides a sizeable domestic market and are the new emerging centers for IT businesses.” he added.

Other Asian countries

Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam have been successful in attracting IT/ITeS activities to their nations. Malaysia’s focus is mainly on development of high value technology, while other countries are making their foray into BPO activities at the lower end of the value chain.

The IT industry in these countries is still in a nascent stage in these countries, largely due to the lack of adequate and skilled English-speaking talent pool. Also, infrastructure in the form of telecommunication network, internet bandwidth, electricity supply, etc., is largely limited to the capital cities, further restricting the growth of the industry. However, significant improvements can be expected in future as the governments of these countries are showing greater commitment to support the growth of the IT industry. Significantly, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in Vietnam are already ranked amongst the top 25 outsourcing destinations in the world

Impact of the IT-BPO sector on Commercial Office supply

The IT-BPO industry continues to command the majority share of the total Grade A office space leasing in India. Meanwhile, in the Philippines and China the share for the same has been rising significantly. Cushman & Wakefield’s research shows that most international IT-BPO companies are looking at opportunities to locate their operations within multiple Asian countries.

They are keen on setting up their first offices in the country best suited, for their nature of business activity and expanding through branch operations in other Asian countries to draw on their advantages too. A number of IT-BPO companies such as IBM, Convergys, Thomson Reuters, Genpact, TCS, Infosys, amongst others that have their regional or head offices in India also have large offices and operations in the Philippines and/or China.

Though India is poised to remain the key location for most global software development and BPO companies, the Philippines is expected to attract some of the BPO activities such as global call centers/voice-based outsourcing activities.

Similarly, though China is expected to remain the global leader in manufacturing, including IT hardware manufacturing, it is expected to grow mainly in the R&D, advanced IT technologies and high-end analytics businesses and not offer serious competition to India in most of the IT-BPO services as it still needs to develop significant capability to do so.