Thursday, February 9th, 2012

santiago bpo 300x199 Upstarts Threaten Big Players in Potential LatAm BPO Boom

Santiago: Sustained vertical drive.

By Dan Berthiaume

Latin American nations make up about one-quarter of the 2012 list of Top 100 outsourcing locations compiled by global outsourcing research/advisory firm Tholons, and that is no accident. As Manuel Ravago, president for research at Tholons, explains, Latin America is an up-and-comer in the world of BPO. And more agile smaller countries might make the most of that.

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Bill Huber Can Latin American Providers Meet the Demand?By Bill Huber, Partner, ISG, and Kristen Elvinger, Research Associate

Concerns exist over the capacity of Latin American service providers to absorb rapid growth. Several global providers currently have a presence in Latin America, and tax and other trade incentives will help attract more outsourcers to the region. And, many Latin American countries are positioned to further develop emerging areas of specialization. Indeed, lessons learned from India, China, and some Eastern European countries suggest that specialization and quality-focused differentiation will be the keys to success, especially for countries with small populations.

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By Reshaad Durgahee

lima Peru 222g 300x229 Investment Data Reveals State of Interest in Latin America Locations

Lima, Peru: Surprisingly emerging.

In the period 2003 through 2010, Europe and Asia were the largest recipient regions of foreign investment projects in shared services and BPO activities, accounting for 46% and 29% respectively. Meanwhile, interest in Latin America has clearly been growing. The number of shared services and BPO foreign investment projects in Latin America rose year on year until 2010, when the total number of projects entering the region decreased by 15%.

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By Luke Bujarski

Puerto Rico2 199x300 COUNTRY PROFILE: Puerto Rico’s Knowledge Economy Off to a Slow StartGiven its close proximity to the mainland and ample bilingual workforce, Puerto Rico should stand out as an ideal Nearshore platform for call centers and BPO operators – right? 

Not so fast: Cost arbitrage aside – a lack of coordinated planning around a knowledge economy may have also set Puerto Rico back a long way behind similar Caribbean and Central American (CCA) markets, particularly for knowledge-intensive services. Here, lessons can be drawn from the successes Costa Rica has had in attracting technology-enabled captive operations. And, given the right global market environment, Puerto Rico could see expansion beyond the current 5,000 or so contact center seats.

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By Dennis Barker

Scrum Conduit 300x225 Setting Out to Train More Scrum Masters and Develop More Agile NationsIn the big international competition with India and other low-cost outsourcing destinations, some Nearshore IT providers have been taking their game to the next level (apologies for the sports cliche) by adopting agile software-development methods. And one of the keys to helping teams become skilled agile players is to hire or train good coaches – leaders who are certified scrum masters.

(Scrum is defined by the Scrum Alliance as “an agile framework for completing complex projects.” The term was adapted from rugby – hence the sports cliche – in a 1986 study by Takeuchi and Nonaka that alluded to a team trying to “go the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth.”)

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Globe3 194x300 A Deeper Examination of Immigration Policies in the Big Six Latin America MarketsBy: Patrick Haller 

Brazil makes it difficult. Costa Rica is complex but straightforward. Colombia requires a lot of paperwork as does Argentina. Mexico and Chile reputedly provide a smooth road by comparison to the others. We are talking about immigration procedures in Latin America. Navigating through the sometimes confusing, often confounding, maze of immigration regulation can be frustrating at best.  Nearshore Americas examines what is involved with obtaining and keeping, work-related visas across Latin America.

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Stability – ironically – becomes the central attraction around the Latin America outsourcing proposition

By Patrick Haller

2012II1 150x150 Top Ten Trends for 2012 in Nearshoring Industry During 2011 the world has seen significant changes in social, political and economic dynamics. The Arab Spring, violence in Mexico, a deepening financial crisis and the Occupy movement all have risen to influence business conditions and investment flows.  As the year nears its close, we checked in with advisory firm ThinkSolutions to understand how the tumultuous events of 2011 will influence what happens in the Nearshoring sector in 2012.

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kiss goodbye 230x300 Costa Rican ICT Market Finally Breathing Life of Liberalization

President Chinchilla kisses goodbye to monopolies.

By Dan Berthiaume

The Costa Rican telecom market is undergoing a period of intense growth that should last at least through 2016, according to a new report from Pyramid Research.

“Costa Rica: Surging Market Gives Operators More Devices, Access and Content to Sell” identifies two key factors in what is expected to be a robust increase in adoption of Costa Rican mobile services: The emergence of competition from pan-regional operators to dominant local telecom player ICE (Costa Rica Institute of Electricity), and exceptionally strong growth in use of mobile data.

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By Jeff Pappas

Globe and Money1 300x300 LatAm Free Trade Zones: Are they Really Built to Support BPO and IT? Over the years, the US has been Latin America’s primary outside investor and leading trading partner, followed by Western Europe. Latin America’s leading imports in past years have included cars, chemicals, electrical equipment, farm machinery, and pharmaceuticals, while its leading exports include bananas, coffee, cotton, meat, wood, and rubber.

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Part II: “Diversify or Die” – is part of code of survival for startups in Costa Rica

By Patrick Haller

In Part II of a series, we take a deeper look at the  startup culture of Costa Rica. Despite bureaucratic hurdles and limited access to capital, there are numerous success stories here.  Getting up and running often requires that firms diversify their services base and figure out a way to become profitable from the start. We talked to four services firms – that managed to thrive in a less-than-nurturing environment.

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