Tuesday, 31 July 2007

ASEAN Countries To Compete With China, India In BPO

According to a new report by a research firm, ASEAN countries can emerge as a strong contender to India and China in cornering offshore contracts in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)...

According to a new report by a research firm, ASEAN countries can emerge as a strong contender to India and China in cornering offshore contracts in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) if they acted as a single market, a research firm has said here.

Asean countries need to play up their complementing advantages rather than compete with each other, the Canada-based research firm XMG Inc said in a report to mark the 40th anniversary of the ten-member grouping.

Lauro Vives, Chief Analyst of XMG Inc, said the countries that showed strong BPO potentials were the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. "Asean member countries have mostly tried to out-compete each other in the global marketplace," Vives said.

"Intra-asean trade still dwarfs that of trade with non-asean countries at a ratio of almost 1 to 3," the reports quoted him as saying.

Such a ratio indicated that most asean members were more inclined to actively compete with their neighbours for a slice of the global market, the analyst noted.

The firm's report noted that each asean country had its own special niche in terms of manpower supply. "Asean as a region state is a green field site with tremendous potential to serve the global ICT market and become a stronger segment of the global supply chain," he added.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) comprises of Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and Brunei.