India, Philippines, South Africa and Egypt feature strongly among the top three rankings, according to the customer experience (CX) and back-office outsourcing and offshoring results of the GBS World Competitiveness Index.
The index and rankings were drawn from extensive survey data from an annual Knowledge Executive global business services (GBS) vertical industry demand survey conducted on behalf of GBS.World. A total of 360 interviews were conducted with global enterprise executives from organizations that outsource and offshore services. These organisations are based in Australia, Europe, the UK, and the US. The executives were asked to rank and rate each country that they outsource to, including service level delivery across various key business process areas. As a result, the top countries across four global regions were ranked according to their final scores. At a regional level, the top 10 countries in each region were also placed in three categories: High Performer, Proficient and Capable.
Additional analyses were conducted on each country’s talent pools, skills development initiatives, enabling infrastructure, multilingual capabilities, labor costs, specialist business processing services and CX capabilities. Tallied results established the final competitiveness scores across the leading GBS locations.
India, Philippines, South Africa and Egypt feature strongly among the top three rankings across the five key CX and back-office categories – customer lifecycle management, back office, data management, customer support administration and digital contact center channel services. Poland and Malaysia were consistently placed among the top 10 delivery locations across all the GBS categories, with Poland ranking highly for digital contact center channel and data management services, while Malaysia is a leader in customer administration services.
When viewing performance between global regions across all five GBS service categories, it is interesting to note that Eastern/Emerging European (EE) countries made a total of 14 appearances among the top 10 rankings, challenging the traditional global regional leader, Asia-Pacific (APAC), which tallied the most (16) appearances. Africa made 10 appearances, followed closely by Central and Latin America (CALA) with nine appearances.
Africa ranks highly in customer lifecycle management services
South Africa took the top spot globally for customer lifecycle services, with a score of 6.60, closely followed by the Philippines (6.32) and Egypt (5.95). This should not come as a surprise, as South Africa was also recently selected as the 2021 Most Preferred Offshore CX Delivery Location by 628 enterprise executives interviewed for the Global Front Office BPO Omnibus Survey by Ryan Strategic Advisory.
Notably, the CALA region performed strongly overall in customer lifecycle management services, where four countries, including Mexico (5.72), Jamaica (5.64), Colombia (5.40) and Guyana (4.83) featured in the top 10. The region is a growing nearshore location for English and Spanish-language customer service delivery for the US.
APAC dominates in back office processing
Attractive price points and abundant business processing skills placed India in the top position for the back office services category, scoring 5.90, with Philippines (5.73) and South Africa (5.24) close behind. Four APAC countries featured in the top 10 rankings, revealing the region’s dominance in global back office service delivery.
When magnifying competition within the APAC region, India, Philippines, and Malaysia were ranked as high performing countries for back office service delivery. Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Fiji were ranked as the top proficient countries within APAC.
Eastern Europe performs well in data management services
India also grabbed first place for data management services, with a high score of 6.27 out of 8, followed by Poland (6.19) and African digital and IT-enabling leader, Egypt (6.03). However, Eastern European countries scored well in this space with five countries in the top 10 rankings, including Poland, Estonia, Croatia, Czechia, and Hungary.
The region’s sophisticated ICT sector, deep IT-enabling talent pool, multilingual capabilities, and high-quality IT output are some of the major factors that position it strongly in data management services.
When ranking the top EE countries for data management services, Poland, Estonia, and Croatia were ranked as high performers. Czechia, Hungary, and Slovenia are top proficient EE countries in this GBS service category.
CALA, EE and Africa countries in top 10 for customer support administration services
Malaysia (6.23) was rated as the top global delivery location for customer support administration services, with South Africa (6.10) and Philippines (5.98) taking second and third place respectively. All regions performed fairly equally for customer support administration services.
CALA and Africa have two countries each in the top 10, including Mexico (5.74) and Jamaica (5.64), and South Africa (6.10) and Egypt (5.73). Hungary (5.84), Poland (5.82), and Croatia (5.62) are the three EE countries in the top 10. APAC representatives, including Malaysia (6.23), Philippines (5.98), and India (5.91), are concentrated within the top 5 positions.
Egypt ranked in top three for digital contact center channel services
Renowned for its strong English-speaking capabilities and digital skills, Philippines (6.46) was rated by executives as a top preferred global destination for digital contact center channel services (that includes web chat, email and social media support services). India (6.31) and Egypt (6.27) were a few points behind in second and third place respectively.
A salient highlight is Africa’s emergence in the digital contact center realm, due to the continent’s growth in digital skills and bilingual capabilities in European languages, especially in English and French. Alongside Egypt, South Africa (6.04), Morocco (5.34), Kenya (5.04), and Rwanda (4.47) scored well in this category.
When measuring performance within Africa, Egypt, South Africa, and Morocco were ranked as high performer countries in the region for digital contact center channel services. Kenya, Mauritius, and Rwanda were ranked as the top proficient African countries.
Growth in emerging offshore and nearshore locations
Over 70% of enterprise executives and buyers interviewed for the survey and index noted that they planned to diversify geographic delivery in 2022 to maintain and sustain business continuity. This includes outsourcing to more emerging offshore and nearshore locations in Africa, EE and CALA and establishing more smaller, satellite business delivery hubs and outsourced centers with local service providers in each region.