By DPA
Singapore : Top Indian off-shore business destinations are in danger of being overtaken by Chinese cities as favoured outsourcing destinations, a study said Monday.
Information technology (IT) research agency IDC compared cities in the Asia-Pacific region as potential off-shore delivery centres based on such criteria as labour costs, rent, language skills and turnover rates.
Such cities in India as Bangalore, New Delhi and Mumbai may be eclipsed by Chinese cities including Shanghai, Beijing and Dalian, the study said.
This year's top outsourcing destinations, according to the agency's index, are Bangalore, Manila, New Delhi, Mumbai, Dalian, Shanghai, Beijing, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland.
This is likely to change by 2011, IDC said, to Shanghai, Bangalore, Dalian, New Delhi, Beijing, Mumbai, Manila, Hyderabad, Kuala Lumpur and Brisbane.
"Chinese cities are catching up fast because they learned from their Indian counterparts about what is needed for successful outsourcing," Conrad Chang, IDC Asia-Pacific research manager, told The Business Times.
Several aspects are crucial, he said, such as massive investment in infrastructure, development of relevant skills in languages including English, Japanese and Korean and investing in education to produce skilled engineers, computer scientists and managers.
The potential of a large domestic outsourcing market is also a key attraction.
"IDC feels that the combination of all these factors might just give China the edge," he was quoted as saying.