The ‘Outsourcing Service Provider Performance Study 2007/08’, undertaken by leading independent sourcing advisory firm EquaTerra, reveals that 100% of UK businesses currently offshoring all or part of their IT functions are using India as one of their locations, and are planning to continue with this strategy. The study also indicated a strong degree of client satisfaction with Indian companies in comparison to more traditional US or European based service providers.
“Business people are making the decision to outsource to India because they can’t find the same resources in the UK” said Phil Morris, Managing Director of EquaTerra Europe.
“Indian firms such as Wipro and TCS are achieving real satisfaction in providing skills, flexibility and quality of work and the globalisation of services will require larger, more global suppliers such as Accenture, IBM and HP to reposition their overall delivery models and structures in order to keep pace with newer market entrants” Phil Morris said.
The study, undertaken annually, evaluates £34 billion worth of UK IT sourcing contracts. This is equivalent to three – quarters of the total current UK IT sourcing market and covers more than 300 unique client-provider relationships and twenty service providers. The ‘Outsourcing Service Provider Performance Study 2007’,researched 110 of the top IT spending contracts in the UK and explored their perceptions of their outsourcing providers, their satisfaction with performance and their plans for future contracts. Study participants are senior level representatives (CFO, CIO or their direct report) within client companies, who outsource all or part of their IT functions and processes.
This year’s results further support the 2006/07 findings, which indicated that Indian Service Providers are steadily increasing their profile and popularity amongst UK IT decision makers. The latest research shows clearly that they have made even greater strides in the past twelve months, establishing themselves as very serious competitors for the major US and European Outsourcing providers, with four out of the top five service providers ranked in client satisfaction, being Indian-based companies.
Perhaps most worryingly for the traditional outsourcing providers, quality and flexibility are being seen as the most important attributes influencing customers’ satisfaction, and the Study shows that Indian providers frequently outscore their established global counterparts in these rankings.