Last week, I was mulling over the question of where in the world the next big outsourcing hotspot might be. This week, I think I've got some answers - but only insofar as knowing which locations might look a tad dodgy from the prospective customer's point of view.

The insight comes from the 2009 Black Book of Outsourcing, produced by the Brown-Wilson Group (recently acquired by market research company Datamonitor). It helpfully lists the top 25 riskiest locations for outsourcing in the world, based on factors such as terrorism, crime rates and political tensions.

Of these, the top 10 are as follows:

1. Bogota, Colombia


2. Bangkok, Thailand

3. Johannesburg, South Africa

4. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

5. Kingston, Jamaica

6. Delhi/Noida/Gurgaon (NCR), India

7. Manila, Philippines

8. Rio do Janeiro, Brazil

9. Mumbai, India

10. Jerusalem, Israel

"The realities of an unsafe world have fully overrun into outsourcing decisions," say Black Book of Outsourcing co-authors Doug Brown and Scott Wilson. "Less inclusive offshore location rankings, based on cheaper but skilled labor pools and tax incentives, are not sufficient to make a qualified destination decision. Not only has the number of known offshore sites have grown significantly over the years, but the severity and complexity of their vulnerabilities has skyrocketed." Organisations that don't take these vulnerabilities into account, they add, open themselves to the possibility that "terrorist attacks, typhoons, crime and corruption" will disrupt vital corporate operations.

Conversely, the top ten safest locations for outsourcing, according to Brown and Wilson, are:

1. Singapore

2. Dublin, Ireland

3. Santiago, Chile

4. Krakow/Warsaw, Poland

5. Toronto/Montreal, Canada

6. Prague/Brno, Czech Rep.

7. Budapest, Hungary

8. Monterrey, Mexico

9. Beijing, China

10. Cairo, Egypt