Top 25 Countries for Foreign Direct Investment by Call Centers, Shared Service Centers and Technical Support Operations

Global corporate site selection strategies for back office operations such as call centers, shared service centers and technical support operations continually change as companies migrate jobs onshore, nearshore and offshore. When the economy is good, companies move jobs onshore where labor quality is the best but the costs are high. However, during challenging economic times, you will find many companies shifting jobs nearshore and offshore. One way to track these location trends is by foreign direct investment (FDI) data — one of the standard methods of measuring global corporate investment.

By definition, FDI occurs when the controlling ownership in a business enterprise in one country makes a direct investment into an entity based in another country. When successful, global location trends are created, and economies can experience significant diversification of their industry as evidenced by countries such as India and the Philippines where back office operations have rapidly expanded.

To help identify which countries have had the most success, Site Selection Group evaluated 5,416 FDI projects in 81 countries to identify the top 25 countries that had the most call centers, shared service centers and technical support centers opened by foreign companies since 2003. The following table provides a summary of the results.

Top 25 Countries for Foreign Direct Investment

Trending countries that did not make the top 25

There are many countries that did not make the top 25 list but have been gaining momentum in recent years: South Africa, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Jamaica, to name a few. The back office sector is growing rapidly in these geographies but just doesn’t have the historic track record to break into the top 25. These countries can provide a good opportunity for companies seeking emerging or less saturated locations for expansion, but these countries can often come with trade-offs such as lack of scalability or political instability.

Conclusions

Call centers, shared service centers and technical support operations are faced with the demand for high quality talent but at a reasonable cost. As companies try to balance these demands, foreign direct investment will continue as the operations shift between onshore, nearshore and offshore geographies. FDI data is one way to help you identify these corporate site selection trends.