India still the top destination for outsourced jobs

[SINGAPORE] Asian countries, particularly those in South-east Asia, continue to be favoured picks among companies looking to contract out business processes offshore. India remains the top outsourcing destination, with its unrivalled advantages in scale and people skills, said the 2014 Global Services Location Index (GSLI) released by A.T. Kearney. China and Malaysia are second and third respectively.

The GSLI, which tracks offshoring patterns to low-cost developing countries and the rise of new locations, measures the underlying fundamentals of 51 countries based on metrics in three broad categories; these are financial attractiveness, people skills and availability, and business environment.

The GSLI, published since 2004, revealed that leading IT-services firms in India, to whom IT-related functions were outsourced, are expanding their traditional offerings to include research and development, product development and other niche services. The line between IT and business-process outsourcing there is blurring, as players offer bundles and specialized services to their clients and are developing skills in niche domains.