Bangladesh Enters Global IT Outsourcing Map: Gartner lists Bangladesh as one of Top 30 Outsourcing Country

GARTNER Inc. (www.gartner.com), world’s leading IT research and consulting company, in its most recent ‘Top Outsourcing Country’ list has included Bangladesh. A Press conference to share the GARTNER research on Bangladesh IT outsourcing was held 26 December, 2010 at Press Club, Dhaka. BASIS (Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services) organized the Press Conference. It was informed in the Press Conference that this is the first time that Bangladesh has been listed in the top ranking by any leading global research company. Gartner publishes the top list every year. BASIS informed that this recognition is a great achievement for the IT Industry of Bangladesh. The ranking will significantly help with respect to increasing the export of IT services as the confidence of outside clients will be increased on Bangladesh based on this ranking. BASIS thinks that the ranking reflects positive initiatives of both Government and Private sector in last couple of years in the field of Information Technology. This year, apart from Bangladesh four other countries have made entry in the list including Bulgaria, Colombia, Mauritius and Peru. In Asia, Bangladesh is the eighth country to be included. Other Asian countries are India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. BASIS shared with the journalist that the ranking is based on 10 criteria including cost advantage, labor pool, education system, infrastructure, government support, language etc. In case of Bangladesh, though Bangladesh has got ‘Good’ or ‘Fair’ ranking in ‘Cost’, ‘Labor pool’, ‘Education System’ and ‘Government Support’ , the raking for key criteria ‘Infrastructure’ , ‘Language’ and ‘Intellectual Property and Data Security’ for Bangladesh has been ranked poor by Gartner. BASIS feels that there is a risk of getting out of the list next year if Bangladesh does not improve significantly in those criteria. Particularly, the ‘infrastructure’ issue needs very immediate response from the government side. In this respect BASIS urges the government to immediately move for 2nd sub-marine cable and reducing Internet price drastically. At the same time, BASIS also requested to Government to allocate special budget for setting up multiple Software Technology Park (STP) immediately. At the same time, BASIS requested the government to work with private sector in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for ensuring enough supply of human resource skilled in technology and language. The Press Conference were attended by Architect Yeafesh Osman, State Minister, Ministry of Science & ICT, Mahboob Zaman, President, BASIS; Mr. Fahim Mashroor, Sr. Vice President, BASIS; Farhana A Rahman, Vice President, BASIS; Forkan Bin Quasem, Secretary General, BASIS; Tamzid Siddiq Spondon,Joint Secretary General, BASIS; AK Sabbir Mahbub, Director other members of the BASIS Executive Council.