MUMBAI: India and the Philippines continue to remain the most cost-compebreastive offshore locations for contact centres in Asia Pacific despite fast-emerging compebreastion in the region, says a survey report.
Hong Kong and Singapore are slightly more expensive locations due to high living costs, said a study conducted by London-based leading IT and IT Enabled Services industries research firm Datamonitor.
Despite being the most cost-compebreastive locations, call centre agent benefits in India and the Philippines are creeping upward as local players work to reduce attrition levels, said the report made available to IANS.
Helped by a vast pool of English speaking professionals and cheaper operational costs, India has become the electronics housekeeper to the world. The industry employs 350,000 youngsters with no specialised professional knowledge.
Global corporations like Siemens, HSBC, American Express, and British Airways ship jobs to Asia's fourth-largest economy to save costs.
Datamonitor conducted a survey of outsourcing market conditions in a host of countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Egypt, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore and South Africa.
According to Datamonitor, Argentina, Brazil and Chile provide the lowest call centre agent price point among all offshore locations examined in the study.
Due to a large and scalable labour force, growing multilingual capabilities and proactive domestic players, offshore investors will find good customer care prospects in each of these countries, said the study.
Conversely, Canada and South Africa are significantly more expensive on a per agent basis. South Africa remains the highest cost location due to agent sophistication and the appreciation of the local currency, it added.
"Investors will pay a higher price per agent in Canada and South Africa," said Peter Ryan, call centre analyst with Datamonitor and author of the study.
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"However, they will generally be guaranteed an excellent quality of labour as well as technology that is second to none," he added.
