Chief information officers will be looking at IT outsourcing due to skills shortages, increased pressures placed on existing infrastructure and cost, an expert claims.

David Turner, director of enterprise resource planning specialist Agresso, writes in the Financial Times that the desire to drive down the bottom line will push companies to external providers.

“Without the internal IT skills to keep pace with the required changes, often there is little option but to outsource,” he states.

He tells the news provider it is a safe assumption that many businesses will be reducing their spending, which means skills shortages and new projects will likely require recourse to external IT support.

Suggesting growth, mergers and restructuring further exacerbates the strain placed on existing provisions, he writes that these place an “immense” pressure on core applications.

According to research by IDC, outsourcing will be the “major driver” of growth in the service sector.

While it has revised its projections for the field from 6.7 to 5.2 per cent, the analyst states there will be variations across each subsection.