Buenos Aries, Argentina

Buenos Aries is the capital of Argentina and also the country’s financial capital. It is among the most populous cities in the world with a population of 12,600,000. The city also has a high literacy rate of 96%. Major industries include food processing, tourism, metal works. Automobile, textiles and chemicals. IBM, TCS, HP, Latin3, Tele Tech, Sabre are the major companies in the IT-BPO space in the city.

Key drivers for Buenos Aries to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• Buenos Aries has a large talent pool and a number of reputed educational institutions, capable of supplying workforce to the IT-BPO industry.


• Argentina’s cultural closeness and linguistic similarities (Spanish, Portuguese, English) with Europe is an advantage, as it allows the country to additionally tap business from Europe.


• The city can serve US markets effectively as it lies in the same time zone as the East US.


• The government is supportive of the IT-BPO sector which has been prioritized and encouraged through incentives.


• The country’s cost competitiveness increased significantly after the devaluation of its currency Peso in 2002, which brought down prices to below half their 1990s’ level.

Other information:

The growth of Argentina’s IT-BPO industry during the technology slowdown was adversely affected by the economic crisis of 2001-02. But the last few years have seen and large number of corporate setting up operations in Buenos Aries, including Microsoft, Intel and Motorola. The IT-BPO sector has seen a rapid growth recently and is the fastest growing sector in the country.

• The total export of IT-BPO services from the city for 2007 is estimated at $228 million.


• Buenos Aries has about 49% of the over 1000 registered IT-BPO companies in Argentina.


• Services sourced from the city include software development, call centres, back office operations like data processing, and creative services like design and media services.


• The cost of living in Buenos Aries is one of the lowest among global cities. The annual cost of living index by mercer ranks it at 138 among 143 countries.

Campinas, Brazil

Campinas is one of the major cities in the state of Sao Paulo, with a population of 1, 100,000 and a literacy rate of 95%. It is an important transportation, telecommunications and economic hub. The languages spoken in the city include Portuguese, English and Spanish. Major industries include automotive, electronics, telecom equipment, petroleum refining, food processing and pharmaceuticals. The current IT-BPO scenario in the city includes companies like IBM, Nortel, Ci & T, Net.2Net, ACS and Softway.

Key drivers for Campinas to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• Campinas has a number of educational institutions capable of supplying a talent pool, especially in the engineering and technology sectors.


• The city is a hub for R&D activities. The University of Campinas has produced the largest number of patents in the country.


• The is adequate IT-BPO infrastructure with the presence of technology parks, reliable power and telecom.


• The city offers a good quality of life and is less congested than Sao Paulo City.


• Campinas is in the same time zone as the Eastern US and thus can serve these markets more effectively.


• A number of companies setting up operations in Campinas are also looking at the domestic market for IT services in Brazil which offers a huge opportunity.

Other information:

The region around Campinas is known as the Brazilian ‘Silicon Valley’ due to the presence of a large number of research centers universities, MNCs and high-tech industries.

• The prominent services sourced from Campinas include hosting, application support and development and customization.


• English language skills are limited but education in English is being encouraged.


• The city has a lower attrition rate compared to other Brazilian cities like Sao Paulo.

Curitiba, Brazil

Curitiba is the capital of Parana state and is an important cultural, political and economic centre. It is considered to be the ecological capital of Brazil with the largest green area per inhabitant. The city has a population of 1,790,000 and a literacy rate of 96%. Major industries include automotive, food processing, tourism and furniture.

Key drivers for Curitiba to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• The city produces a qualified technical talent pool of about 19,500 every year for the IT-BPO industry.


• Measure to improve the English language skills of the workforce are being taken, potentially making the workforce suited for bilingual services.


• The city provides good infrastructure including a dedicated technology park for IT-BPO companies.


• The city is known within Brazil as a model city and offers a good quality of life, has a effective public transport system and flood management system.


• The city also lies in the same time zone as East Coast and can service these areas more effectively.

Other information:

IBM, Dell, HP and Xerox were the first few companies to set up operations in Curitiba. Several companies including Accenture, Philip Morris, Bristol Meyers Squibb, HSBC, Siemens and ExxonMobil have customer service centers in Curitiba.

• The combined IT-BPO exports of the city in 2007 are estimated at $ 202,566


• The city has 791 registered companies and 281,025 people employed in the IT-BPO sector in 2008.


• BPO services offered from the city include finance and accounting, order management, customer care and HR.


• Attrition levels in the industry are low at about 5%.

Calgary, Canada

Calgary is a major urban centre in the province of Alberta. The city is Western Canada’s transportation and distribution hub and is also Canada’s energy capital. The city has a population of 1,230,000 and a literacy rate of 99%. Languages spoken are English and French. Major industries include, oil and gas, mining, manufacturing, technology, finance, aerospace, transportation and logistics.

Key drivers for Calgary to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• Calgary has several educational institutions that offer a ready talent pool for the IT-BPO industry.


• Calgary has the highest rate of population migration into the city among Canadian cities, thereby providing a larger talent pool.


• The city offers good infrastructure including reliable power, telecom, and transport facilities.


• The government of Calgary has promoted the IT-BPO industry by providing tax breaks, incentives and substantial research funding.


• The city’s established oil and gas industry is attracting outsourcing companies to leverage outsourcing opportunities in the oil and gas sector.


• Calgary’s proximity and cultural affinity with the US, coupled with its relative cost advantage allows it to effectively tap the near-shore outsourcing market.

Other information:

Calgary’s IT industry employs about 20,000 people with about 1543 IT companies operating in the city. IBM, SAP, Fujitsu, TCS, HP, JDA Software have offices in Calgary. Over the last ten years the ICT sector has become a major contributor to the strong economic growth of the city. The IT industry represents about half of the ICT companies located in the city.

• The IT-BPO exports of Alberta province exceeded $2.2 billion in 2008.


• The city also offers back office services such as finance and HR outsourcing.


• Calgary has a young and educated talent pool with over 10,000 people graduating every year from post secondary institutions.


• Salary rates in Calgary are relatively lower mainly due to publicly funded health care.

Winnipeg, Canada

Winnipeg is the capital of the province of Manitoba and also its biggest city. Winnipeg is one of Canada’s key transportation centers. The city has a population of 719,200 with 99% literacy. Aerospace, transportation, biotechnology and health research, agri-business and food processing, financial services and energy are the major industries in this area. HP, IBM, Convergys are a few companies that have BPO operations in Winnipeg.

Key drivers for Winnipeg to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• Winnipeg has a sizeable bilingual workforce with communication skills in English and French.


• The city offers IT-BPO companies good infrastructure, quality office space, technology parks and government incentives.


• Winnipeg is one of the best cities in terms of overall business competitiveness within Canada.


• The city is well suited for housing a sourcing contact center and providing customer management services.


• The geographical proximity to the US and compatible time zone is another advantage for Winnipeg.

Other information:

Winnipeg houses a large number of customer contact centres for Canadian companies such as Air Canada, Canada Post, Canada Revenue Agency and Royal Direct (Royal Bank). The province of Manitoba has over 1500 companies operating in the ICT sector with nearly 80%of these firms located in Winnipeg.

• The city offers contact centers and software development services especially focused on financial and business management solutions, customized e-learning processes, integrated e-payment solutions, and financial planning.


• The IT-BPO industry in the city has an average job tenure of over 100 months.


• The 2007 family expenditure per household survey by Statistics Canada ranks Winnipeg among the most affordable locations in Canada.

Santiago, Chile

Santiago is the capital and the largest city of Chile. Its is also home to more than a third of the country’s population. It is an important financial center in Chile as well as in South America. Major industries in Santiago include financial services, trading, machinery and electronic equipment and food processing. Accenture and TCS have BPO operations in the city and Yahoo! Has its knowledge center here. The city ahs a population of 5,822,316 with 95.7% literacy rate. Spanish and English are the man languages.

Key drivers for Santiago to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• The city has a good infrastructure for the IT-BPO industry.


• It offers a large and ready talent pool.


• A large number of companies source Spanish language call centers and BPO services from the city.


• The government of Chile provides financial and other support for high-end industries and setting up an IT-BPO business in Chile is fairly easy.


• The city is very well situated for near-shore business due to similar time zone and cultural affinity with the US


• Santiago offers significant cost advantage in terms of competitive wage-rates, and lower operating and living costs compared with other cities in the Americas.

Other information:

Santiago has witnessed rapid advancement in information technology and BPO services, as numerous companies have set up their shared services hubs and cutomer contact centers in the city. Companies like Citigroup, BHP Billiton, Shell, Evalueserve and TCS have set up offshore centers in Santiago.

• The city has a large presence in Spanish-based customer support.


• The combined IT-BPO exports from the city are estimated to be between $300 to $350 million.


• There are over 130 IT-BPO companies in Santiago.


• The major IT-BPO services sourced from Santiago include IT services, customer support, finance and accounting, human resources, marketing and technical support.

Guadalajara, Mexico

Guadalajara is Mexico’ second largest city and the capital of the sate of Jalisco. Known as Mexico’s ‘Silicon Valley’, Guadalajara has a large concentration of technology companies. It has a population of 1,600,940 with a literacy rate of 92%. Languages spoken include Spanish and English. Major industries in Guadalajara are food and beverage, textile, tequila, auto-parts, agro-products, electronics and communication.

Key drivers for Guadalajara to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• The city has prominent educational institutes that produce over 18,000 IT and tech graduates every year.


• It lies in the same time-zone as the US and can be a viable near-shore destination.


• The city can leverage its Spanish language proficiency and provide contact center services in Spanish.


• The city has a well developed infrastructure, quality technology parks and a healthy transport system.


• The state government of Jalisco has targeted improvements in administrative processes resulting in reduced time taken to set up a business in the state.


• The city’s government, industry and academia collaborate on various sector strategies and technological research to strengthen the high-tech cluster in the city.

Other information:

Key IT-BPO companies in Guadalajara include IBM, TCS, HP, Perot Systems, Intel, and Teletech. The prominent IT-BPO services sourced from Guadalajara include software development, embedded software, IT services especially firmware design and testing and multimedia.

• New opportunities are emerging for Guadalajara in multimedia services like digital animation, special effects and videogames.


• The IT cluster in Jalisco has over 70 international companies and over 3000 employees.


• The combined ICT exports from the city of Guadalajara were estimated at $16 billion in 2007.

Queretaro, Mexico

Queretaro, formally known as Santiago de Queretaro, is the capital of the Mexican state of Queretaro. It was ranked in the top 10 North American cities of the future by FDI magazine in 2007-08. The city has a population of 877,837 with a literacy rate of 95.8%. Languages spoken include Spanish, English and Otomi. Key industries of Queretaro are automotive, metal, chemicals, consumer goods, apparels and food processing.

Key drivers for Queretaro to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• The city has the capacity to serve as a Tier II alternative or spoke centers to the companies in Mexico City and Monterrey.


• The talent pool in Queretaro is well suited for technical services and Spanish contact center services.


• The 2004-09 development plan for the city aims to strengthen the airport highways and industrial infrastructure.


• The city can be a good near-shore center for the US market.


• The government is taking initiatives to bring in administrative deregulation and simplification which has effectively shortened the time taken to set up in the city.

Other information:

Hildebrando, NIIT, Triara are some of the companies that operate from Queretaro. The state government is focusing on making Queretaro a leader in embedded software and contact center services in Mexico. IT exports in the state of Queretaro amounted to $17.7 million in 2007.

• Queretaro ranks fourth in Mexico in terms of IT sector exports.


• There are over 60 IT-BPO companies operating in the city with close to 3,800 employees in software development and another 6,200 in contact center services.


• Queretaro also offers BPO services like contact centres, data mining, market analysis, finance and accounting services, and loan application processing.

Boise, USA

Boise is the capital and the largest city of Idaho state. It is a center for commerce and politics for the state. The city has a population of 567, 640 with a literacy rate of 99%.major industries include defense equipment manufacturing and related services, forestry, computer components, tourism.

Key drivers for Boise to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• Boise has a number of reputed educational institutions including the Boise State University that produce a technical talent pool.


• An incentive system and easy funding has promoted a large number of start-ups in Boise. This has helped in creating a culture of entrepreneurship and an injection of talent and ideas into the city.


• Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine named Boise as the fourth best city in the USA to “live, work and play” for 2008.


• Companies located in Boise have the benefit of onshore operations combined with a lower cost of living compared to the other cities in the US.

Other information:

Boise’s high-tech industry started in the 1970s with companies like HP and Micron Technology setting up base in the city. At present HP, Microsoft, SCP Global Technologies and Synoptek are some of the IT-BPO companies that have operations in Boise.

• There are over 34,000 high tech workers employed in Boise’s industry.


• The city is characterized by the SME segment and according to Idaho Department of Commerce, the Boise are has around 400 software and IT companies.

Indianapolis, USA

Indianapolis is the capital of the state of Indiana and is the 12th largest city in the United States. The city has a strong reputation in sporting activities and has hosted a number of sporting events. Indianapolis has a population of 797,268 with a literacy rate of 99%. Major industries include food and allied products, chemicals, electronics, medical and optical goods. English is the main language.

Key drivers for Indianapolis to emerge as a favorable IT-BPO destination:

• The city offers a variety of incentives to the IT-BPO industry. In a 2008 study, KPMG has ranked it the city with the third most cost effective tax structure.


• Indianapolis is located most centrally among the top 100 markets in the US, giving it access to talent from other cities.


• Indianapolis offers good infrastructure including power, telecom and roads and a good quality of life for its residents.


• Companies located in Indianapolis have the advantage of onshore operations combined with other IT centers in the US, especially the Silicon Valley.

Other information:

The technology industry in Indianapolis has seen sustained growth over the last 4-5 years and has seen positive job creation. The average technology worker in the city earns approximately 54% more than the average private sector workers. Indianapolis is primarily focused on ICT and technology related services with lower traction in BPO services.

• There are about 2000 IT firms in the Indianapolis region.


• Around 28,500 people are employed in the high tech industry sector in Indianapolis.


• The cost of living in Indianapolis is lower than the national average, especially on parameters such as cost of groceries, utilities and healthcare.