Selecting an Offshore Country for IT Services

As an outsourcing consultant working for Accenture, I am regularly presenting on “Why Accenture?”. However, today I was challenged with a new question from a client. Why China? As the IT outsourcing services industry continues to expand in both it’s offerings and locations, many companies are confused as to what locations they should leverage. It is important to keep in mind that location choice should be based on the project requirements. Everyone wants to minimize costs associated with IT. However, there are many more intangible costs outside of the standard hourly labor rates that can dramatically impact your projects success. For example, if you have a small project (~ 5-15 resources) that requires more significant real-time interaction over the course of a year, you will likely want to leverage an onshore or nearshore location. If you attempt to use an offshore location with these project requirements, you will likely find that the increased attrition (due to requirements of people to work grave yard shift) and telecommunications costs could outweigh the labor arbitrage. As the demand continues to rise exponentially, new markets become attractive for mitigating rising costs in the primary locations such as India. Having done some external research on the location topic, I’ve included my findings below for reference. Feel free to contact me directly if you have additional questions.
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