Introduction

Latin American countries have emerged as attractive destinations to provide business process and technology services to cater to the growing regional demand as well as to the US markets. The cities in the region have different leverage points across multiple factors relevant for location selection (e.g., costs, labor-pool, functional, language skills) which adds to the complexity of the process. Leading global suppliers/captives have set up delivery centers in numerous cities in the region, but the location landscape continues to expand in terms of potential countries and cities. This research examines the relative attractiveness of Latin American locations for business process outsourcing and prioritizes the best 15 locations.  It will assist companies considering locations in Latin America for BPO services understand the current and evolving city landscape and make informed decisions or trade-offs based on specific company requirements.   

Scope 

• Analysis includes 35 cities across 6 countries, including Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Argentina and Chile
  • Cities include: Mexico City, Puebla, Monterrey, Toluca, Culiacan, Guadalajara, Chihuahua, Mexicali, Saltillo, Aguascalientes, Leon, Queretaro, Tijuana, Juarez, Panama City, San Jose, Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Rosario, Santa Fe, Parana, Mendoza, San Miguel de Tucuman, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Curitiba, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Campinas, Vitoria, Uberlandia, Recife and Santiago
• This report is applicable to all industries
• This report is applicable to both buyer and supplier organizations 

Contents

This report evaluates city locations across Latin America and assesses their relative attractiveness based on a four step methodology:

• Step 1: Made assumptions to reflect functional, language, and scale requirements of a typical BPO center
• Step 2: Deprioritized cities that did not meet minimum criteria for setting up a center (i.e., stability, security, risk of natural hazard, connectivity, infrastructure support)
• Step 3: Of the remaining cities, deprioritized those that did not have sufficient labor-pool and language skills to support center’s requirements
• Step 4: Characterized the remaining city options in terms of cost-risk tradeoffs
  • Total cost of operations (salaries, real estate, equipment, telecom, etc.)
  • Key risks (environmental risks, maturity/time to market, labor availability, language skills, etc.) 

This report is divided into six sections.  The first four provide a detailed discussion of the methodology steps with supporting data and analysis; the fifth provides the reader with additional considerations for location selection and tips for implementation; and the last section provides one-page city profiles of cities included in the report.