Survey: Offshoring of IT Infrastructure Management Increasing

Offshore outsourcing of IT infrastructure management is likely to be the next big wave, according to results of a recent survey conducted by Wipro Technologies.

According to the online survey of 145 executives from various industries, more than 30 percent of the respondents are planning to offshore their IT infrastructure in the next 12 months, and another 30 percent are actively researching or evaluating doing so.

Wipro is a major offshore provider of IT infrastructure management and business process optimization (BPO) services.

The study was based on an online survey conducted by Wipro in April and May. It polled 145 senior and middle-management executives working in organizations spanning various industries.

Application Development

Interest in offshore BPO is gaining more ground, according to the survey results, with 34 percent of the respondents planning to offshore some of their business processes in the next 12 months.

The survey indicates that traditional application development and management will continue to lead in organizations' offshore outsourcing plans, with more than two-thirds of the respondents planning to offshore them in the next 12 months.

The study found that offshore outsourcing is increasingly becoming a strategic initiative at global organizations.

At 38 percent of the organizations surveyed, offshore outsourcing is now a C-level-executive-led initiative. An overwhelming majority of executives polled (87 percent) said that their offshore-outsourcing spends would increase this year. On average, organizations indicated they are likely to increase their offshore outsourcing spends by 34 percent.

"The findings confirm that offshore outsourcing has now become mainstream. There is a clear indication that various global organizations have gained confidence to offshore new and complex service lines like IT infrastructure management and critical business processes" Sudip Banerjee, president of Enterprise Solutions at Wipro Technologies, said.

Entry Barriers

In the offshore outsourcing space, entry barriers are seen as falling and customers are ready to add new vendors. A sizeable number of the survey respondents (40 percent) were keen on evaluating/initiating relationships with new vendors.

Organizations with more maturity in offshore outsourcing, or those planning to offshore newer service lines like IT infrastructure management/BPO, are more likely to do so, according to the survey.