by Bob Evans

Last week we shared an outsourcing expert’s list of “The 10 Riskiest Places In The World For Outsourcing,” but for those IT organizations looking for a slightly less exuberant outsourcing adventure, today we’re happy to offer you that same expert’s list of the world’s 10 safest locations for outsourcing. Hint: none of the 10 safest is in India.

Compiled by Scott Wilson as part of his annual Black Book of Outsourcing research, the list of safest outsourcing locations is based on the same criteria as the list of riskiest outsourcing spots: local strife and obstructive forces to capitalism; corruption and organized crime; transnational and geopolitical issues; unstable currency; personal crime rate and police-to-citizen ratio; unsecured and unprotected networks, infrastructure, technology, and telephone; uncontrolled environmental waste and pollution; terrorist or rebel target threats; legal system immaturity; and, weather and climate hazards.

(And before offering the 10 safest, here’s the list of the 10 riskiest locations in case you missed it.)

Wilson’s Black Book of Outsourcing assigns each location a score for each of those risk categories, and then compiles a mean score across those ratings in each category. Here’s the list of the 10 safest with its mean score and a note on each location’s highest-risk category:

THE 10 SAFEST OUTSOURCING LOCATIONS (ranked by Black Book of Outsourcing):

1. Singapore: 0.64, corruption and organized crime
2. Dublin, Ireland: 0.71, terrorist or rebel target threats
3. Santiago, Chile: 1.09, personal crime rate and police-to-citizen ratio
4. Krakow/Warsaw, Poland: 1.10, corruption and organized crime
5. Toronto/Montreal, Canada: 1.12, terrorist or rebel target threats
6. Prague/Brno, Czech Republic: 1.64, personal crime rate and police-to-citizen ratio
7. Budapest, Hungary: 1.98, personal crime rate and police-to-citizen ratio
8. Monterrey, Mexico: 2.13, corruption and organized crime
9. Beijing, China: 2.96, uncontrolled environmental waste and pollution
10. Cairo, Egypt: 3.13, transnational and geopolitical issues

A few notes on some high scores in certain categories: While Beijing came in at #9 overall, it received the highest overall score on the entire grid with a 9.09 for uncontrolled environmental waste and pollution; Mexico City came in a close second in that same ugly category at 8.78; and St. Petersburg/Moscow scored 8.45 in corruption and organized crime.

Also, after posting the Black Book’s list of the 10 riskiest locations, we got a number of letters questioning the listing of Bogota, Colombia, and the riskiest location in the world, and some research by yours truly turned up a lot of evidence supporting those questions.