Indians win offshore mindshare

UK companies are increasingly turning to India for their offshore outsourcing needs, national survey finds

UK firms that offshore their IT functions are increasingly favouring Indian suppliers, a new national study has found.

According to independent sourcing advisory firm EquaTerra, Indian IT services firms such as Wipro and TCS are steadily increasing their profile and popularity among UK IT decision makers.

EquaTerra’s Outsourcing Service Provider Performance Study 2007 polled high-ranking executives at 110 of the UK’s top IT spending organisations and evaluated £34bn worth of UK contracts.

The study found that all UK firms that offshore all or part of their IT function now use India as one of their offshoring locations, and plan to continue using this strategy.

Indian firms are also leading the way in quality, with four out of the top five service providers ranked in client satisfaction located on the sub-continent.

Phil Morris, managing director of EquaTerra Europe, said: “Business people are making the decision to outsource to India because they can’t find the same resources in the UK.

“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.”

The report also revealed that offshoring is becoming more popular. Some 57 per cent of firms polled had utilised near or offshoring within the last twelve months, compared to 47 per cent last year.