Manoj SharmaColombia will soon inaugurate a new president, and the outsourcing industry is watching closely with cautious optimism. Abelardo de la Espriella takes office on August 7, 2026, on a pro-market program — tax cuts, deregulation, more flexible labor rules — marking a change of tone after four years of rising labor costs and regulatory uncertainty.
The new government inherits a hard list of structural fixes: widening fiscal deficit, credit downgrades, labor-cost drift, and security perception, which continues to shape Colombia’s image as an outsourcing destination.
Nearshore Americas spoke to six market experts, and they all agree on a few things: Colombia has distinct advantages in the cost of talent, distributed labor, and scale. So, the first-year priority for the incoming government should be to reset the narrative and compel investors to see the real, on-the-ground situation.
They acknowledge Colombia’s potential but question whether the new government can improve its image, equip future generations with digital skills, and deliver macro stability.
Q1. How do you expect the next administration to influence Colombia’s competitiveness as a destination for outsourcing, IT services, and global business operations? What policies would most improve its position with international investors?
Mauricio Velásquez Muñoz, Business consultant, BPO, CX, Digital Transformation: The signal is pro-investment. Execution is the critical variable. President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella campaigned on a pro-market program: tax simplification, including the announced elimination of the 4×1,000 financial transactions tax and the wealth tax, special economic zones with tax exemptions, a “one in, two out” deregulation rule, AI-driven modernization of the tax authority (DIAN), and a GDP growth target of 6%-7%.
On labor, according to public analyses of his plan, he proposes more flexible hiring modalities — hourly, hybrid, per-project — and a review of the outgoing administration’s measures. For a global-services investor, it marks a change of tone after four years in which labor costs and regulatory uncertainty rose simultaneously.
Analytical honesty requires a caveat: independent analysts have questioned the plans’ fiscal arithmetic. With Colombia downgraded to BB by both S&P (negative outlook) and Fitch, investors will price verifiable facts — the budget, the fiscal plan, the first decrees — rather than campaign rhetoric.
For BPO, IT, and GBS, location decisions do not respond to the ideology of the government but to unit labor cost and its predictability; fiscal and currency stability; the talent pipeline; and legal certainty of investment regimes.
Jaime Echavarria, Consultant: We are facing a better future with the new president. I anticipate there is ample awareness about our possibilities in nearshoring in all respects (not only IT), and this is most relevant because the VP was the Secretary of Commerce in a previous presidency. Thus, the incoming executives are well aware of what has worked and not in the past, regarding promotion of investment and service exports.
The most important tracks of advancement are: Diminishing the perception of insecurity and letting the market know the conditions of day-to-day living; having government officers explain how multinationals can operate more efficiently in Colombia; offering tax incentives and guaranteeing mid-term economic stability; and making qualified candidates available by re-educating professionals (like India did).
Andrew Kokes, Chief Marketing Advisor, Pivot AI Global: Colombia has the right mix of good talent, improving English-speaking talent, and a suitable time zone that works for North American buyers. What I believe slows investors is policy uncertainty.
The next administration should focus on keeping labor rules predictable and investing in connectivity outside the major cities. Companies shopping for a new delivery location aren’t only looking for the cheapest options; they want the most stable environments for their business.
Lonnie McRorey, Co-Founder & CEO, TeamStation AI: You’ve got two behemoths of talent for BPO and ITO — Mexico and Brazil — with Colombia smacked in the middle. Brazil’s getting expensive on devices, Mexico’s getting more expensive on salaries. There’s dollar devaluation, and then this change in government, but it’s not going to change a lot of things. It just becomes pro-business.
Colombia’s salaries are lower; expectations are lower. The election change in Colombia is more about confidence than actual operating costs or labor structure; it’s a sentiment reset, not a structural reset.
Going forward, labor law stays in place, and the tax system could remain unchanged unless the Colombian Congress acts. The new leadership shifts Colombia toward pro-business sentiment, but execution depends on Congress and the ministries, not just the presidency.
About policy changes, we’re not going to see it any time soon because it needs Congress’ backing, and that’s going to take a while. Investors aren’t moving because of policy change right now; they’re investing on sentiment and foreign exchange. If Colombia wants to be the tip of the spear for investors, they need to mitigate risk: governance, system governance, and cybersecurity.
Pilar V. Ceron, CEO, Xtrategy US: The next administration has an important opportunity to strengthen Colombia’s competitiveness. The most important factors for international investors in this industry will be guaranteeing a competitive pool of talent, major partnerships with tech & AI corporations, and most importantly, legal certainty and stability.
One of the sector’s main concerns during the present administration until August the 7th, 2026, has been the labor reforms, which proposed strengthening indefinite contracts, limiting fixed-term hiring, increasing overtime and night-shift costs, expanding mandatory paid leave, and reducing workforce flexibility. For labor-intensive industries such as outsourcing, IT services, and global business operations, these measures raised concerns about higher operating costs and reduced hiring flexibility.
Since the election of De la Espriella, there has been public discussion about introducing more flexible schemes, such as hourly work and proportional social security contributions. The new administration’s agenda, including investments in AI, STEM education, digital skills, connectivity, a virtual university initiative, and incentives for innovation and R&D, could significantly strengthen the country’s talent pipeline.
Santiago Alcain, Founder, GIGA IT: Greater connectivity, broader access to programming and AI education, and a more favorable environment for private investment could take the industry to a new level. At the same time, macroeconomic stability will be essential.
For an export-driven services industry like ours, the exchange rate has a direct impact on international competitiveness, so maintaining the right balance will be critical to sustaining growth and attracting long-term investment.
Q2: What is the single biggest concern international companies have about expanding or investing in Colombia? What should the first year be for the new government?
Mauricio: The number one concern is predictability. It shows up today on three simultaneous fronts that investors read as a single compound risk. First is fiscal deterioration, with the government’s deficit in the 6.4%-7.1% of GDP range for 2025. Private investment stands at 17.5% of GDP, reported to be at the lowest level in about two decades.
Secondly, labor-cost drift, with costs rising 6.8% to 35% depending on the sector — with BPO at the upper end — on top of above-inflation minimum-wage increases. The third is security perception, which shapes the country’s image and clients’ willingness to visit and audit operations.
The government’s first 12-month agenda should be to adhere to the fiscal rule; form a technical task force on labor regulation for 24/7 operations; legal shielding of the free-trade-zone regime; and 2027 minimum-wage negotiation. The concern is not that Colombia is expensive. It is that investors can no longer confidently project their five-year dollar cost. The first government to restore that ability will capture an investment wave.
Jaime: International concerns are: security, business outcome (profitability), taxes and economic stability, and talent.
Andrew: Security perception. While not always the reality, it does drive decisions before anyone visits. The first-year priority should be getting international business leaders into the country to see it firsthand. Let leaders experience the environment, and the operations will make the case in a way no amount of marketing can fix. A site visit can quickly benefit Colombia, but only if they don’t get banned from coming in the first place because someone said, “Colombia’s not safe”.
Lonnie: A: Colombia sits right next to Venezuela, so there’s an influx of Venezuelan migrants and political refugees blending into the population. The Caribbean is hot right now with US military presence, so Colombia has to play a very tight game: if it makes the wrong move with the US, it could hurt them. To mitigate risk, companies need to properly vet who they’re hiring because of the refugee influx, money laundering, and people avoiding taxes through different banking methods, all of which can create risk of losing assets or intellectual property.
Pilar: Some of the main concerns deal with uncertainty, particularly regarding a level playing field, regulatory stability, and political measures. Businesses continue to face complex tax and regulatory frameworks, frequent regulatory changes, burdensome bureaucracy, customs uncertainty, and security challenges in some regions. Colombia also ranks 36th out of 38 OECD countries in tax competitiveness, highlighting the need to improve the overall investment climate.
Thus, the first year of the new administration will be critical. If the government wants to restore investor confidence, it must deliver tangible progress on regulatory simplification, legal certainty, and public security. Proposals such as reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, lowering the tax burden on formal businesses, and adopting a “one in, two out” regulatory policy would provide greater predictability for investors.
Santiago: From the conversations I have with clients, the biggest concern isn’t talent or delivery capability. It’s certainty. Companies making long-term investments want to know the rules won’t change every few months. The best thing the new government can do is provide stability, support private investment, and make it easier to do business. If investors feel they can plan with confidence, Colombia already has everything else it needs to keep attracting technology and outsourcing projects.
Q3. As companies continue diversifying operations across LATAM, where do you see Colombia’s greatest competitive advantage, and where does it risk falling behind regional competitors?
Mauricio: The advantage: talent depth at competitive cost, across multiple cities. Colombia’s greatest advantage is the combination of scale, geographic distribution, and cost of talent. The 74 leading operators in my database alone employ roughly 1,70,000 people directly (2025). That talent is not concentrated in one city: Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Pereira, Manizales, and Ibagué offer relevant pools with differentiated cost structures, letting investors diversify risk within a single country.
There is also a transformation signal few are reading: in my database, leaders’ revenue per employee rose from US$13,400 in 2022 to US$17,600 in 2025, while direct employment declined from peaks near 190,000 positions in 2021–2022 to roughly 170,000 today (samples differ across years, so the comparison is indicative). The industry is already migrating toward higher-value, more technology-leveraged services.
The factors where Colombia risks falling behind are low proficiency in English; labor-cost drift; and fiscal-currency volatility against Costa Rica’s stability and Mexico’s economic gravity (USMCA, deep US integration).
Jaime: Brazil is a different animal — that’s why multinationals treat the region as LATAM, and Brazil separately (language barriers, size of the market, work ethics, etc). I used to be the US head of the office of promotion, exports, and investment in Colombia, and we have a distinctive advantage over Mexico in the quality of executives and talent.
Costa Rica is comparable to Colombia in quality, but the size of the talent pool and many other resources is at least 5X that of Costa Rica. This gives companies coming into Colombia the possibility of accessing superior talent, better communication, infrastructure, and logistics.
Andrew: Colombia’s real advantage is talent quality at a price point Mexico can’t match. However, the risk is competing on that cost advantage instead of capability. Costa Rica already moved up the value chain into specialized services (e.g., financial services, medical devices, IT, and legal processes).
Colombia needs to make that same choice on purpose, before the market forces a race to the bottom. It should move faster to follow what the Philippines and Latin countries like the Dominican Republic did to standardize healthcare and nurse training around a familiar US baseline.
Lonnie: I don’t see greenfield moves into Colombia. It’s still a volatile neighbor. What we’re seeing is a redistribution of talent. Colombia’s labor cost is staying roughly flat while Mexico and Brazil are getting more expensive, so relative to them, Colombia looks more attractive.
But Mexico is still more favorable because it’s next door, with a free trade agreement and no import taxes, and Brazil is a behemoth with the largest talent pool in Latin America — Mexico is number two, Colombia is number three, then Argentina.
Pilar: Colombia’s greatest competitive advantage lies in its combination of high-quality talent, competitive operating costs, size of the market, strategic geographic location, and growing digital economy. The country has developed a strong ecosystem for outsourcing, IT services, software development, and knowledge-intensive business operations, while sectors such as digital infrastructure, logistics, agribusiness, emerging technologies, and cybersecurity offer significant opportunities for future investment.
The new administration’s focus on connectivity, digital infrastructure, AI, cybersecurity, and workforce development could further strengthen these advantages.
Santiago: For me, Colombia’s biggest advantage is its people. We have outstanding technical talent, a culture that works well with North American companies, and a time zone that makes collaboration easy. On top of that, there’s still enormous room to grow. If we continue expanding access to technology education, English, and AI skills across the country — not just in the major cities —Colombia can become one of the strongest technology hubs in Latin America.
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