Сompanies are outsourcing their IT processes because they don’t posses the technical skills in-house. This is not something the Round-Up has woken up this morning and decided. It is actually the result of a report titled “State of the Outsourcing Industry in Mid-2009: Activity to Resume with a More Cautious and Global Focus” conducted by the AMR Research Inc.

The survey was conducted in May and June with 700 companies and the results broken out by enterprise and midmarket firms. AMR defined midmarket as companies with $750 million to $3 billion in revenue. The report concluded that IT outsourcing trends among midmarket companies in 2009 shows that outsourcing activities will increase over the next six to eight months, particularly in the areas of application development, hosting and IT infrastructure.

Another report that surfaced this week was the 5th annual report by the Duke Offshoring Research Networks. It is a collaborative report between the Conference Board and the Duke University Centre for International Business Education and Research.

The good news is that it returned positive results for offshoring practises this week. According to the report, offshoring strategy for U.S. businesses has more than doubled over the last 3 years. Small to medium enterprises emerged as particularly capable of discovering original locations for offshoring activities and were also noted as more adept in their use of the internet and web based cooperation technologies. So much for President Obama’s crack down on offshoring!

While the report did note employee turnover and the depletion of managerial control as possible risks of offshoring, Tom Heijam, one of the authors of the report, was keen to highlight the general benefits offshoring could provide to companies. He particularly cited “cost savings” and “the meeting of target service levels” as some of the benefits offshoring practises offered. It seems our boys and girls in those offshore destinations are doing their companies proud with meeting service level agreements.

The Round-Up couldn’t finish without the mention of one of the big players this week. Wipro Technologies has won a contract with BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc.

Wipro’s data centre in Nebraska will provide support to the wholesaler who insists the move will not be detrimental to the quality expected by its customers. BJ’s CIO, John Polizzi, was keen to point out the contract will allow BJ’s to adapt to change “without sacrificing quality.”

So to round up the Round-Up; ITO is on the up, offshoring is rising in the U.S. despite Obama’s best efforts and there is no stopping the high rollers from winning those big contracts. Phew, all of that in a week. I wonder what the Round-Up will come across next week…