India’s Hot & Happening Outsourcing Destinations

Over the past few years, the Indian outsourcing market has grown by leaps and bounds with more and more overseas companies outsourcing everything from customer support, to accounting, to animation and even teleradiology. Earlier on, though India has 35 large cities, only a few like Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai ruled the Indian outsourcing industry, as other lacked in skill sets, expertise and manpower resources.

However, there is now a rapid increase in smaller Indian cities and towns joining the outsourcing business, with the same expertise, skill sets and resources that the big Indian cities offer. NASSCOM along with the Indian government has been promoting smaller Indian cities, due to high attrition rates, rising competition and an overload on existing infrastructure. Smaller Indian cities have become popular due to ample space, skilled professionals, lower attrition rates, low cost of living and lesser competition. Here is a list of India’s hot and happening outsourcing destinations:

1. Bangalore

   Bangalore continues to rule as India’s software hub, with its availability of skilled resources. The pleasant climate of Bangalore has also been a factor in Bangalore’s popularity. This was the place where the Indian outsourcing revolution began and according to recent surveys, it continues to be rated as the top Indian city for investing, living and earning. However, the city’s inadequate infrastructure, constant political bickering, exploding population, poor urban planning and high real estate prices are some factors why other Indian cities are slowly overtaking Bangalore. Almost any outsourcing service, be it software, customer support, chip design, IT consulting, tax processing or Bioinformatics can be handled by the Silicon Valley of India. When compared to other Indian cities, Bangalore employs the most number of IT professionals. The leading companies situated in Bangalore are Infosys, Wipro, Intel, IBM, SAP, SAS, Dell, Tisco, TI, Motorola, HP, Oracle, Yahoo, AOL, E & Y and Accenture.

2. Chennai

   Chennai was not a popular choice for outsourcing like Bangalore or Hyderabad during the early years of outsourcing in India. But today, Chennai has emerged as India’s leading outsourcing hub with advantages such as, low cost of living, better infrastructure, larger space, high connectivity, availability of skilled IT resources and low attrition rates to name a few. This city has the best infrastructure facilities in India. The city of Chennai is taking after Bangalore by specializing in almost every area, including software, animation, ITES, back office, tax processing etc. Cognizant, Standard Chartered, Polaris, EDS and Pentamedia are some of the prominent companies in Chennai.

3. Hyderabad

   By building up its urban infrastructure and with a supportive government, Hyderabad has continued to attract global investors. The government in Hyderabad has always extended its support to the IT industry and planned a growth phase in the city; to improve infrastructural facilities.The city of Hyderabad is skilled at handling offshore work related to BPO, software, ITES and product design. The famous IT companies in Hyderabad are HSBC, Satyam, Google and Microsoft amongst others.

4. Delhi and NCR (national capital region)

   The capital of India is expensive and not a popular outsourcing destination, but its surrounding cities such as Gurgaon and Noida are fast emerging as outsourcing locations, due to their proximity to Delhi, availability of skilled resources and good international linkages. New Delhi, along with Gurgaon and Noida are outsourcing cities that you can consider for call center services, chip designs, transaction processing and software services. GE, American Express, ST Microelectronics, Wipro Spectramind, Convergys, Daksh and ExL are some of the well–known companies situated in these Indian cities.

5. Mumbai

   The city of Mumbai has favorable government policies, skilled IT resources and excellent infrastructure facilities making it an ideal outsourcing location. This city is skilled at providing finance and accounting services, application development, software solutions, BPO services and healthcare solutions. TCS, IBM, Mphasis, i–flex, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Infosys, Wipro, HCL and Mahindra Satyam are some of the leading companies in Mumbai.

6. Kolkata

   This city is gaining a lot of attention because of its low costs and large availability of IT resources. However, Kolkata is famous for its frequent trade shut downs and constant traffic congestions. The government of Kolkata has been building up the city’s infrastructural facilities to attract outsourcing investors. Kolkata will soon emerge as an ideal outsourcing location. Software and other consultation services are the main services offered from this city. PwC, IBM, ITC InfoTech, TCS are the leading companies in Kolkata.

7. Pune

   Professionals at Pune can handle customer support, embedded software and chip design amongst others. MsourcE, C–DAC, Persistent Systems and Zensar are the prominent companies in Pune. The city of Pune is close to Indian’s financial capital, Mumbai. The large availability of IT professionals has made Pune a rising outsourcing hub. With improving infrastructure and housing facilities, Pune is on its way to becoming a hi–tech outsourcing city.

8. Chandigarh and Mohali

   These twin cities are well panned and are developing their infrastructural facilities. Along with ample space, they also have the skilled resources and financial capability, all the right ingredients for an outsourcing destination. Though these Indian cities do not have an international airport, they are well connected by rail and road to Delhi.

9. Mysore

   The city of Mysore is being preferred over India’s Silicon Valley, as Bangalore is getting more expensive and congested, along with a higher attrition rate. With the presence of companies like Wipro and Infosys and the city’s closeness to Bangalore, more overseas companies are planning on investing in Mysore. Though a small city, Mysore is soon to emerge as a leading outsourcing location.

10. Thiruvananthapuram

    This city, located in Kerala is home to acclaimed technology and science research organizations. This city has started gaining outsourcing attention with its budding infrastructure and availability of skilled IT resources.

11. Coimbatore

    When it comes to engineering services, the city of Coimbatore is the first name that comes to mind, as it is India’s engineering outsourcing hub. This city has a large number of young engineering graduates along with skilled IT resources. The Tamil Nadu government has been taking efforts to develop Coimbatore and promote it as an outsourcing location.