Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

In examining the global contact center industry, attention is often given to India as dominating the outsourcing market. The country offers investors and offshore corporations such benefits as a low cost skilled workforce, low overhead and progressive infrastructure designed to support growth in the market. And, despite the dominance India currently has in the contact center market, other areas around the world are rising to the competitive challenge.

Argentina is an area where focus on growing its IT and BPO activity has resulted in improved economies in the dominant cities of the Pampeana province including Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Santa Fe (Rosario). According to Zagada Institute’s report, “Argentina Executive Call Center Report 2007: Heart of Innovation and Care,” these three cities generate over 90 percent of Argentina’s contact center growth.

Buenos Aires has proven to have the highest agent density at 54 percent, compared to 28 percent and 12 percent in Cordoba and Rosario respectively. Predictions for the area’s industry have highlighted higher per-capita agent growth for Cordoba in 2007. Efforts are also being made in Rosario to better position the city’s five contact centers as an expansion location of choice for companies with existing operations in Buenos Aires and Cordoba.

The province of Tierra del Fuego garners significant interest as this area has attracted IT related factories since the 1970s. The region houses 17 IT related factories, while another 37 local and foreign electronics manufacturers have indicated plans to invest US $150 million in new operations. Although the area has strong IT factory presence, there are currently no contact center BPO companies serving international markets.

Argentina as a whole has seen tremendous growth in the contact center market over the past several years. This market alone has grown five fold since 2001 and agent density was projected to reach 33,000 in 2006 and 41,920 in 2007. Such gains would prove significant expansion in the industry as the country was home to only 6,500 agents in 2001.

The contact center market in Argentina grew at an average rate of 34 percent over a 36 month period and is expected to show a 31 percent growth rate for 2007. The projected decline in growth is based on the anticipated GDP deceleration in 2007, which could be mitigated by growth in U.S. and international contracts. At the time of this report, Argentina was home to 300 contact center operations serving the local market.