- Eight Asia-Pacific countries rank in the top 15 most attractive destinations for offshore services globally.
- The 2023 index focuses on regenerating talent and digital skills, putting Singapore in the limelight as an emerging APAC tech destination for creating innovation hubs.
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – August 8, 2023 – Global management consultancy Kearney has released its
Global Services Location Index (GSLI) 2023 which studies the critical factors that make countries attractive as potential locations for offshore services.
At a time when global business landscapes are rapidly changing, business services such as information technology, business process outsourcing (BPO) and engineering are increasingly provided across borders, as businesses seek to reduce costs, scale talent and increase efficiency by utilizing the global talent base. . In the current climate, Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets shine as potential offshore service destinations, with
India, China and Malaysia continue to dominate the index as the top three destinations respectively.
The GSLI ranks 78 countries based on 52 measures that cover four dimensions, including financial attractiveness, people skills and availability, business environment and digital resonance.
Good prospects for APAC
Continuing their strong performance at GSLI 2021, APAC countries lead this year’s index, with India, China and Malaysia making the top three, largely due to the advantage in terms of cost, talent availability and strong skills. Meanwhile, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore are ranked in the top 15. Singapore jumps 24 ranks from 38e at 14e in this year’s ranking, the highest leap of any country.
A breakdown of the performance of APAC countries within the GSLI, namely India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore, is available in the appendix.
GSLI APAC Rankings 2023
“Geopolitical, economic, and technological forces have spurred significant shifts in the global labor market. Consequently, a country’s ability to retrain and redeploy its workforce in response to changing labor demand market and technological disruption is key to improving its attractiveness as an offshore location for business services,”
says Arjun Sethi, Kearney’s Global Vice President of Digital Transformation, Regional Director and President of Kearney’s APAC region, and co-author of the 2023 GSLI report. “Talent Regeneration will be the most crucial game changer as Industry 4.0 continues to reshape the demand for skills and future jobs. And that is what has kept the top three countries – India, China and Malaysia – strong in the index for a few years now, while the others have been quite fluid in their positions.” He added: “So in a nutshell, while creating regenerative talent pools, everything, everywhere, all at once, is what a country should seek to achieve – constantly staying one step ahead.”
The key to talent regeneration for continued attraction
A key trend highlighted in this year’s report is the importance of
talent regeneration – the ability of a country to rapidly retrain and redeploy its workforce in response to changing market demands and technological disruptions to maintain and enhance its attractiveness as an offshore location.
With the emergence and adoption of digital technologies, cost-centric service sites are likely to lose their competitiveness to more developed and technologically advanced countries, as more jobs and processes will be automated. Talent regeneration will therefore be the backbone of this change.
Through a talent regeneration matrix, this year’s report shows the talent regeneration capacity and maturity of countries. Singapore shines as the premier emerging tech destination and innovation hub of APAC and Southeast Asia. India and China are also showing strong talent regeneration and are expected to lead the world in terms of availability of cutting-edge workforce. In addition, traditional outsourcing leaders in the region such as India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand will need to invest heavily in regenerating talent, as the cost advantage of workforce becomes less relevant given technological disruptions and socio-economic factors.
About the 2023 Kearney Global Service Location Index
The 78 countries in the 2023 Global Services Location Index were selected based on business contribution, current remote services activity and government initiatives to promote the sector. They were assessed against 52 parameters divided into four main categories: financial attractiveness, skills and availability of people, business environment and digital resonance. This year, Kearney refocused the index to be more forward-looking and captured digital resonance and regenerative talent capabilities and availability. In the process, a few metrics were removed from the Human Skills Availability and Digital Resonance pillars that focused on traditional IT, and new digital-focused metrics were added. This, combined with global trends and major local disruptors, has resulted in stark differences in the rankings of some countries.
To access the report, click
here
Hashtag: #Kearney #GlobalServicesLocationIndex
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
