SSON’s data analytics center, Dart Institute, recently expanded its offerings via the newly launched City Cube, an interactive data tool that compares cities around the world across a variety of metrics. These include competition [other existing shared services centers] availability of functional expertise and accredited talent, average salaries, job market metrics [tracking live jobs] and cost of living.
This kind of data was previously only available by contracting directly with specialist consultants. Dart's comprehensive, metrics-based city benchmarking tool is an invaluable guide to making location decisions (data can be exported for reporting purposes, or to integrate with other internal resources).
With Global Business Services gaining in popularity, the ability to evaluate and compare not just accredited talent but also the potential competition is a big advantage.
One of the areas City Cube shines a light on is salary. And this light also exposes a few misconceptions that may be leading to less than optimal location choices.
It's interesting to note, for example, that a Head of Finance SSC earns roughly the same in Bangalore as Paris; but that Paris-based SSO Heads earn significantly less than their counterparts in Bangalore or Shanghai, which have 5x (Bangalore) or 6x (Shanghai) the number of SSCs as Paris.
On the other hand, Bangalore, widely known as India's IT hub, has only a third of the IT hubs of Sao Paulo AND pays IT software developers a third of what Sao Paulo pays.
Unexpected? We agree.
See table below and check the City Cube for yourself. The ability to play with this kind of data, compare cities, evaluate talent and check job vacancies, are useful tools to a practitioner with global aspirations.
Find out more: Check out the City Cube for yourself!