As businesses expand their operations to different parts of the world, it is becoming increasingly important to communicate with customers in their native language. While English is widely recognized as the lingua franca of business, global companies can expand their market reach even further by operating in different languages.
Over the past decade, the demand for Asian language speakers has increased drastically. However, the availability of most Asian languages outside of the Asian subcontinent is limited. This means that most companies need to leverage Asian markets to support delivery in any Asian language. Today, several Asian countries can support a wide range of Asian languages – primarily due to the increased globalization of the Asian bloc and the growing bilateral trade relations among multiple countries within the Asian subcontinent. This has opened a gateway for enterprises and providers, as they no longer need to limit themselves to just the native Asian country for services delivery in a specific Asian language.
This Everest Group handbook supports organizations in their efforts to identify the right locations for delivering services in Asian languages. It highlights the relative attractiveness of key global locations based on a holistic and multifaceted approach. The report covers various parameters to assess the attractiveness of language delivery, including language scalability potential, language proficiency, salary premium compared to English language delivery, and the operating and business environment.
In this report, we analyze 12 locations in Asia for Asian language services delivery. The report focuses on eight Asian languages – Hindi, Indonesian Bahasa, Japanese, Korean, Malay Bahasa, Mandarin, Thai, and Vietnamese.