This report was commissioned as an independently researched report by Hill & Knowlton, acting for the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) of Egypt. The global offshore outsourcing market for IT and business services exceeded $55 billion USD in 2008, and some estimates suggest an annual growth rate of 20% over the next five years. It is common to talk of Brazil, Russia, India and China as the BRIC inheritors of globalisation, offering both offshore IT and back-office services, and also, with their vast populations and developing economies, huge potential markets. This report, however, which was commissioned by the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) of Egypt, set out to investigate to what extent, within this context, non-BRIC countries could also be seen to be potential inheritors of globalisation. A representative sample of 14 countries drawn from Central and Eastern Europe, the African Mediterranean, the Americas and Asia Pacific, where the main active non-BRIC economies can be found, provided the focus for the systematic comparison of their relative competitiveness from which a benchmarking index could be developed. Setting out the long-term context and trends through which these countries are emerging as IT and business service 'hot spots', and identifying the global sourcing trends and pressures that are likely to develop in the next five years and their implications for these non-BRIC countries, the report turns in its final chapters to consider Egypt in more detail to assess its current positioning, the future path that it can take, and the challenges it faces as well as actions needed for it to get there.
