A new study has found that that Argentina, India and the Philippines are some of the least expensive locations to do business. For example, voice-based call center agents in Argentina and India make just 12% and 10% what American and UK voice-based customer care agents are paid per hour.

The Global Pricing Guide To Offshore Outsourcing, published by Datamonitor, compares the risks and rewards of the 10 major offshore and nearshore contact center outsourcing locations.

The report gives the average price of an outsourced agent performing the following tasks: outbound collections, direct response queries, outbound telemarketing multi-media customer care, technical support calls and inbound voice-based customer care calling and the average wage of a voice-based customer care agent in offshore and nearshore markets.

"As low-cost nations other than India aggressively pursue a portion of offshore-outsourcing, outsourcers and end users must not lose sight of hidden costs and other risks in locations around the globe. Besides complicating the decision to move customer care services offshore, they could potentially prove costly," says Datamonitor call center analyst, Mark Best.

Other findings from the report reveal:

• In Datamonitor's view, Poland, which joined the EU in May 2004, has a core of the highest quality agents in Europe for calling out of Germany and Austria.
• The UK and the United States account for the largest proportion of outsourced business in South Africa. The Netherlands accounts for the smallest.
• Canada is currently the most expensive offshore/nearshore location in the world but it is also the most stable and secure.
• Jamaica, which competes with Canada as a lower cost nearshore outsourcing location, is one of the most expensive offshore/nearshore locations. It is also one of the most stable and secure.
• Mexico is the most expensive nearshore location for bilingual English/Spanish calling. It is also one of the most stable.

Datamonitor is predicting that some offshore markets will experience wage Inflation, but that overcapacity, partially due to offshore outsourcing, and commoditization of the market will result in wage deflation in Germany, the UK and US

"Although outsourcers and end-users need to consider the risks of moving call center operations overseas, and more importantly, the benefits of a particular workforce, Datamonitor is confident that offshore outsourcing will continue unabated because of labor arbitrage," says Best.