Well, another year is here with its new perspectives, new hopes, new aspirations, as well as new plans and strategies. At the very start of the year we bring to your notice IT Sourcing Europe’s outlook on the European ITO market and future development trends and relations between Western European ITO services buyers and Eastern European ITO services providers.

Judging from the perspective of ITO services buyers, the following trends and changes are anticipated in 2011:

One of the most vivid tendencies – which came from 2010 with over 9 billion Euro in contract value and is anticipated to further increase in 2011 – is the increased demand for outsourced IT services from the public sector. The demand for cost-effective outsourcing opportunities in this sector is primarily explained due to recent turmoil in such countries as Ireland and Greece as well as economic uncertainties in other EU member states.

Secondly, there is traced a shift from mere cost saving to access to qualified and lower-cost IT resources. Already in the previous year Western Europe faced a significant shortage in IT skills and resources, while Eastern Europe showed a significant increase in IT workforce led by Romania with 12.33% growth in the number of IT specialists and followed by Ukraine with 9.51% growth.

Closely connected with the above comes the third trend: nearshoring will hit the mainstream. Of almost 2,000 non-outsourcing companies polled in the survey, more than 22% plan to transfer their IT/software development nearshore versus only 11% of those who plan to outsource offshore.

And last but not least, service integration will help achieve innovation. In 2011, more Western European IT leaders are expected to realize the importance of integrating the outsourced project management, orchestration and delivery, thus gaining full control of their sourced projects.

In the second part of the post we’ll dwell on the trends and changes which are anticipated in 2011 judging from the perspective of ITO services providers.