Bangladesh – An emerging Market for IT/ITeS Outsourcing: An analysis of why Limelight Networks Inc. should outsource to Bangladesh.

Abstract

Global IT enabled services industry has been growing steadily in the last decade. The current global economic crisis has led to shrinking IT budgets for corporate, but there has been a continual growth in demand for global demand of IT services, with cost optimization being the primary driver for off-shoring services to the developing countries in order to acquire the best options at the cheapest possible rates. The increasing cost being the primary driver for off-shoring IT services provision from the West to the East. The increasing field of development and pioneer technology, with new service delivery paradigms like cloud computing and multiple sourcing, is set to transform the ITES industry globally. Over recent years, Bangladesh has made major strides in laying the groundwork for a diverse and successful IT services market. The IT services industry within Bangladesh has been growing serving international clients and domestic clients in banking and telecom sectors. The industry now employs over 20000 people, and is exporting services to European, North American and East Asian clients. Bangladesh’s emerging IT service players already have strong credentials. Bangladesh offers a vast pool of young, trained and English speaking resources – available at costs almost 40% lower than established destinations like India and Philippines. Government authorities have demonstrated a determination to promote IT services industry in the country – providing cheaper bandwidth and alternate international cables, setting up Technology parks and providing tax holidays for export oriented industries. The “Digital Bangladesh” initiative of the government is helping setup infrastructure for enhanced connectivity, ICT based citizen service delivery and ICT based Education system. There is evidence of many global players, like Samsung, AMD, VizRT, WorldBridge Global – setting up operations in Bangladesh. With today’s challenging economic conditions, more companies are looking at effective use of external providers to help them support and expand their operations. Bangladesh has positioned itself as a key location for consideration by enhancing delivery capability and skill availability, lower costs of operations, making focused investments in telecom and IT infrastructure, and highlighting success stories.