Africa Has Outsourcing in Its Sights

[OhioChick]

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 12:40 PM PDT

Like many parts of the developing world, Africa wants a piece of the IT outsourcing market, and while problems in India have opened the way for that to happen, challenges stand in the way of a big breakthrough.

Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa are all becoming increasingly aggressive in their push to compete with India in outsourcing, as well as with other parts of the world.

"There is an opportunity, India is going to remain the offshore outsourcing leader probably forever, but you never know, and they are losing ground. That market is in trouble because of attrition, companies are plagued by it," said Mindy Blodgett, analyst, enterprise research, business process outsourcing strategies, at Yankee Group, speaking Wednesday at ITU Africa.

Prices are also going up in India, which is a good thing for Africa, and many countries have a time-zone benefit when dealing with European customers.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145899/africa_has_outsourcing_in_its_sights.html

[DavidDvorkin]

1. South African English is not a barrier, as Indian English often is

[OhioChick]

2. True.

Another key factor is that India is getting costlier and it's all about the bottom line.

[crimsonblue]

3. Even the outsourcee is getting outsourced..

Capitalism at work!

[OhioChick]

4. Yep.

The race to the bottom.

[colonel odis]

5. guess they're tired of paying those exorbitant wages to indians.