Offshore outsourcing has become a controversial issue with possible wider macro-economic effects for Europe as well as the popular offshore locations. However, according to a new report by independent market analyst Datamonitor, offshore outsourcing stands to grow significantly as European financial services institutions remain focused on efficiency and cost-cutting as the main drivers of their IT strategy.
According to the report, Benefiting from offshore outsourcing in FS, expansion of offshore outsourcing will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18% between now and 2005. It will be driven particularly by emerging business process outsourcing services, such as core back office process outsourcing, and also by a sustained growth in traditional offshore areas like application development and contact centres. During the next two years, offshore outsourcing in European financial services will create a market opportunity in excess of $240m for IT vendors.