In Sept. ’07 Wipro expanded its presence in Latin America by opening its software-development center in Monterrey, Mexico to offer services to North American and Latin American customers in the same time zone and geographical proximity. This is just one example of the many companies that have recently made entries to the region due to the increasing demand of services from American customers.
In fact, companies like GlobalLogic, a Virginia-based service provider, have plans to enter into Latin America, to serve its North American customers. “We are setting up a center in Buenos Aires, Argentina to work in the same time zone with our customers in the U.S.A.,” says Peter Harrison, CEO, GlobalLogic. “We do a lot of work on the real-time basis, and it proves a hindrance while sending the work offshore to places like India where people have to work at night.”
Meanwhile, sourcing advisory firm Alsbridge’s recent study identified 10 Latin American cities, which are emerging as new “homeshoring” locations that are now being seen as the Bangalores and Shanghais of tomorrow (See Table).
“Fifty global brands have already established a presence in the traditional offshore locations, whether through an outsourcing service provider or by setting up their own shared captive centers,” says Ben Trowbridge, CEO, Alsbridge. “Now the sourcing world wants to know about the nexts, and we believe there are emerging cities across the globe, which qualify based on the quality of the workforce and low cost of living.”
Many of the big outsourcing firms are already active in these emerging cities such as TCS in Montevideo, Dell and EDS in Panama City.
As a matter of fact, “homeshoring” is also picking up heat because the very reason why a company sends work offshore — low-cost labor — is offset by the extra work required for its oversight, quality control and translation.
| Emerging Outsourcing Cities in Latin America |
| City (Country) |
USP |
| Bogotã (Columbia) |
Low-cost labor |
| Brasilia (Brazil) |
An alternative to Brazil’s São Paulo |
| Curitiba (Brazil) |
Low-cost labor |
Guatemala City
(Guatemala) |
Geographical proximity, educated & bilingual professionals |
| Jãurez (Mexico) |
Geographical proximity |
| Managua (Nicaragua) |
Low-cost and skilled labor force, wide bilingual professionals. tax and other government incentives, effective telecom infrastructure |
Monterrey
(Mexico) |
Geographical proximity |
Montevideo
(Uruguay) |
Quality education system and low-cost engineers |
| Panama City (Panama) |
Geographical proximity, no currency risks or costs, tax
incentives for BPO, call centers and alike |
| San José (Costa Rica) |
Strong bilingual skills, presence of large International
service centers and vendors, stable political economy |
Source: Alsbridge
