BANGALORE: Bangalore remains the most attractive IT/ITeS outsourcing location in the world, and six Indian cities are part of the top 10 most attractive outsourcing locations, says the latest annual ranking by consulting firm Tholons. The other cities are Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.But the 2014 edition of this survey, which ranks the top 100 locations, also points to some interesting trends: several Indian tier-2 cities, as also cities in the Philippines, Poland and South America, have significantly improved their attractiveness over the past year.Chandigarh (at No. 23), Kolkata (25), Jaipur (38) and Ahmedabad (63) have improved their rankings. Ahmedabad rose the most, by six ranks, compared to last year's ranking, suggesting that Gujarat CM Narendra Modi's economic initiatives are paying off for the IT/ITeS industry too.It is seen to be particularly good in finance & accounting BPO and in certain aspects of IT. However, Coimbatore (31), Bhubaneswar (55) and Thiruvananthapuram (68) have slipped a little. "Efforts by Nasscom (IT industry body) and others to promote tier-2 and tier-3 cities are paying off," said Vikrant Khanna, principal at Tholons. But it remains to be seen whether these cities can evolve to service a diverse portfolio of services.Manila, the capital of the Philippines, has risen to the second spot, dislodging Mumbai, which is down to No. 3. Other cities in the Philippines, including Davao City, Santa Rosa (Laguna), and Bacolod City, all rose up the ranks, while Cebu City maintained its No. 8 position."The Philippines was predominantly in voice-based BPO, but now, non-voice BPO is also growing significantly," said Khanna. Global companies are showing a lot of interest in doing work there, as also service providers in India who want to de-risk their business.The Philippines' close ties with the US have helped, but it has less than a tenth of India's population, so those establishing centres there are looking at building strengths of 1,500-2,000 people over three years. That's unlike in India, where companies are able to scale quickly to many thousands of employees.Industry analysts say India has no reason to have any immediate worries about the Philippines."The India story is compelling, with 3.5 million graduates coming out of colleges every year. A lot of heavy lifting will be done from India. The Philippines still has a lot of catching up to do in non-voice areas," said Keshav Murugesh, CEO of business process management company WNS Global Services.Tholons ranks cities based on six parameters: scale & quality of talent; cost; business catalyst (economic profile of city); infrastructure; risks (political and social risk, risk of natural disasters etc); and quality of life. Thirty-nine of the top 100 locations in the latest survey are from Asia-Pacific. But other continents, too, are seeing more action now. Poland is increasingly seen as a great destination to offer IT and ITeS services to European locations, particularly given its wide mix of language capabilities. Krakow in Poland rose one spot to No. 9 in the 2014 survey, Warsaw, the capital, rose three positions, and Wroclaw rose ten positions to No. 65.Cape Town in South Africa rose nine positions to No. 59, while Johannesburg rose one spot to No. 21. Cities in Egypt suffered severely because of the political turmoil there.In South America, San Jose in Costa Rica is at No. 13. Brazilian and Argentinian cities are seen to be losing out, partly because of rising costs. The beneficiaries of that are cities in Colombia, Peru and Nicaragua. But with the outsourcing industry evolving to move closer to clients, South and Latin American locations, as also East European and African ones, are generally expected to gain in future.