Choosing where to outsource depends on the type of business process you are outsourcing. Each country has it strengths and weaknesses when it comes to Call center BPO, transcription services, data entry or IT and programing. I’m writing this post as an effort to try to help one of my readers and answer a few of his questions. Andy, this one’s for you!
The Philippines blows India and Eastern Europe away when it comes to spoken English. Americans can hardly tell that they are speaking to a Filipino vs a fellow American on the phone. Romanians still have that “Dracula” accent but the Americans are actually charmed by that accent. We don’t have gypsy immigrants in the US and therefore, Americans have absolutely no stigma or prejudices against them. Lastly, Indian’s are still awesome at IT and are very talented programmers. Below are more details from each country.
Philippines BPO
Philippines English Proficiency
25 – 40 yrs old speak with a mild accent and know few idioms
18 – 25 yrs old speak with almost perfect American accents and know most idioms
8 -18 yrs old sound exactly like kids in the US and know ALL the same idioms and expressions
I was at a California Pizza Kitchen in Manila last year when a kid was having his 10th birthday with many of his friends… if I didn’t know any better I would think they had just got off a plane from the US. They sounded just like Americans and were speaking in full US slang, I had to do a double take because I just couldn’t believe it!
Another 10 years and these kids will be a workforce to reckon with. The Philippines has already become the #1 destination for call centers with more seats than any other country. Another benefit is that the culture and lifestyle is closer to American than any country I’ve ever been in. Indian culture is still 100 years behind and only a small small percentage of the population has adopted Western culture and the accent is something they will never loose even if they live abroad for 10 years.
Eastern Europe BPO
Eastern Europe has great vocabulary because most languages like Romanian, have Latin roots. Many words are exactly the same just pronounced different. Like the word, obscure is obscur and the word contemplation is contemplare. This gives a huge advantage when reading and writing English. As for the culture, I feel like they are still behind the Philippines at adopting Western culture. This may be a result of generations of oppression from the Iron Fist and I think the “Revolutionary Generation” will change all of this.
Romania, Serbia and Ukraine are just starting to compete in global IT outsourcing but I think in the near future, Eastern Europe will be great destinations for IT and web development. Everyone knows some of the best hackers come from these areas! You can read here what I had to say about Romania SEO Outsourcing. You can also find some very good information and workforce statistics about Serbia Outsourcing from a guest post and even download a media kit with charts and more details.
India BPO IT
India’s IT industry is phenomenal. If you want to outsource software development and or IT infrastructure, this is the place to be. The Indian Information Technology industry employes more than 3 million people and is responsible for a large portion of the world’s modern IT developments. India takes in a whopping $76 billion USD per year in IT BPO alone compared to $36 billion in China and only $8 billion in the Philippines.
Andy, I hope this helped to answer some of your questions and please feel free to chime in with your opinion or ask some more questions in the comments below.
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Andy
