Brazil Remains Viable Choice for Call Center Outsourcing
December 19, 2006
Brazil is one of the latest destinations of choice for call center operations, according to the Brazil Executive Call Center Report 2007: An Emerging Sourcing Giant by the Zagada Institute.
The report focuses on providing strategic guidance and detailed decision making cost estimates and economic handlers to corporate buyers, vendors, investors and executives about how to compare and evaluate Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Curitaba and Florianopolis for site selection.
The five cities are intensely compared within the Sao Paolo Rio de Janiero axis which is responsible for over 90 percent of contact center BPO activity in the country. Brazil claims Latin America’s largest contact center BPO agent population of over 200,000. The country also creates jobs for close to 1 million workers associated with the industry.
The current positions available in the Brazilian market represent a significant increase from the market’s 55,000-agent base in 2001. Overall BPO and IT outsourcing revenue is estimated to be $2.4 billion in US dollars with roughly 10 percent generated from international contacts.
According to projections by Zagada, Brazil is on track to have 350,000 agents by the end of 2007, despite the fact that the average annual growth rate in the sector has slowed. And, while the country has over 1,000 call center operators, the market is highly segmented with 10 larger centers generating under 20 percent of the market’s revenues.
Zagada’s report evaluates the call and contact centers as well as the vendor and equipment service providers. Studies concluded indicate that Avaya has a commanding lead in the market with Plantronics as the leading headset provider.
The likelihood of organizations finding educated individuals in Brazil is quite good. The report indicates that close to 300 of the country’s nearly 2,000 universities and institutions of higher learning serve the Sao Paulo-Rio axis and graduate 1.2 million students each year.
The Zagada report also reveals that while Brazil has a large internal market and an expanding contact center BPO and IT sector, the country continues to face a number of internal and external challenges. Internally, the country is wrought with rising inflation rates, increasing wages and high levels of software piracy rates.
Government data on Brazil projects a 5 percent GDP 2007 growth rate, although most analysts tend to agree on a range under 4 percent which represents half of India and China, Brazil’s leading outsourcing competitors. Brazil also faces competition from Argentina, Mexico, Central America, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines.
