India continues to top Gartner's list of 30 offshoring destinations

India and China continue to hold their ground as the leaders for offshoring services, says Gartner. The research and advisory firm, has assessed 72 countries as offshore locations to announce its Top 30 destinations.

The analysis showed that the dynamic nature of the market has seen a number of countries position themselves as credible alternatives to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

Ten countries from Asia Pacific were represented in the 30 leading countries. These included the undisputed leader in offshore services — India — and the greatest challenger in terms of potential scale — China, said the report. The rest are a mix of mature environments that offer limited cost benefits such as Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and emerging countries with a variety of challenges, but attractive costs such as Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

“Countries such as Mexico, Poland and Vietnam have continued to strengthen their position against leading alternatives, while others have forced their way into the ‘Top 30’,” said Ian Marriott, research vice president at Gartner.

Although only seven countries from the Americas appeared in the final list of 30, these countries are becoming an attractive proposition for the largest buying market for offshore services – the US. Only Canada was rated "excellent" for language (with fluent English and French) but Latin American countries are able to leverage their Spanish-language skills increasingly in the US.

The final list of 30 countries included 13 from EMEA and for the first time saw two North African countries enter the leading countries in EMEA.

Locations such as Ireland, Israel and South Africa fared well for language skills, because of the quality and quantity of English-language speakers.

During the last 12 months, there has been significant activity in many countries to consolidate or grow their positions as leading locations for offshore services. As a result, four countries leaving the ‘Top 30’ this year were Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Uruguay. The new entrants into the 30 leading countries for offshore services were Egypt, Morocco, Panama and Thailand.