Trade and industry association. Often they are very good entry points to the country's IT and BPO sector. They can put you in contact with decision-, and policy makers as well as government departments and officials.

Government resources (in your own country and in the target country). Request information from the relevant embassies! They can provide business, travel and other important information. Sometimes they also offer business support programs to tap on (financing, marketing, trade missions, business development etc.) The embassies later can also put you in contact with companies and government agencies.

The country evaluation checklist

Country evaluation must include a detailed risk assessment of the issues related to the list above.

Download the Country Evaluation checklist here.

How to use the country evaluation checklist

The country evaluation checklist worksheet is NOT ‘beautiful’ so it can be easily modified and ‘beautified’ later, according to the user’s needs and corporate style.

Here are the simple steps to make the evaluation checklist work for you;

6. Set the Relative importance of each issues/country features individually. You can use only numbers set in the list of Importance (on the List worksheet).

7. Evaluate each country feature or issue individually and give a rating according to your rating scale.

8. When you are finished, you can see the country ratings at the top of the table.

What’s next?

The country rating grid can be a useful tool for negotiating, at management level, the possible outsourcing destinations. However, the evaluation must be put in the context of the company’s whole outsourcing strategy.

Based on your evaluation visit the most prospective countries. This will help you to verify and refine your selection and it will also get you in contact with companies, IT associations, government bodies, IT decision-, and policy makers. The information you pull together during a country visit will be essential to finalize your country selection and start to find suitable partners.

Why is it important for service providers to know about country selection?

There are a number of reasons a service provider in a low cost country should know, how prospective customers select a country for their offshore operations. Some countries are well known outsourcing destinations, such as India, China, Israel, etc. Some countries are generally better known than others, people have more information (bear in mind that here we do not talk about the quality of the information, only the availability and quantity) such as Russia and China. Unfortunately on most of the low cost countries there is not enough information available and when information reaches the general news media it is, more often than not, about a disaster, political upturn, war, disease or any other ‘newsworthy’ event, which regularly means ‘bad news’. I think all of us can cite many examples. Consequently, many low cost countries;

do not have a too positive image in general

have to deal with the perceptions of people

have very little or no visibility as an IT outsourcing destination

However, a number of countries are working gradually to change this, often not too encouraging, picture. It is crucial to present the right information to prospective customers. Ideally the country has a one-stop-shop (web site, office, regional representative) where all information and information source is present and available for customers. Consequently, it is crucial to know the buyers’ country selection process and criteria set. Often country level promotion is seen as a the task of government or IT sector associations. However these bodies sometimes do not or can not fulfill this task. In a situation like this companies play a vital role to provide at least entry level, but well selected and well presented information on the country to prospective customers.