Today, off-shore and on-shore business models are no longer IT companies' first choice as the clients are demanding pricing discounts, re-negotiating agreements and terms with better service deliveries.

Moreover, with cost becoming the key criteria, companies are forced to look for cheaper locations and skilled workforce to tackle the downturn and survival of business. Hence, companies are looking at the near-shore business model as an alternative.

In fact, Northern Ireland, part of United Kingdom, is among the emerging destinations that offers highly technical workforce, business opportunities and major scope for research and development (R&D) facilities with financial incentives from the local government. Also, it is among the most suitable near-shore destinations for Europe and American markets.

According to Allan Wilson, Invest Northern Ireland's ICT advisor, the island nation has two key features – work quality and location that can encourage IT companies to set up business here.

Recently, the group was in India to meet IT companies and encouraging them to have base in the island nation.

“We do quality work, whether it be research and development, software programming or services. There's a strong focus on quality processing in project managements and delivery,” says Wilson.

“Although Northern Ireland is a micro economy, the cost of software development is 20 per cent cheaper compared to Great Britain and offers gateway to Europe and other nations,” he adds.

Invest NI (Northern Ireland), is a part of Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investments, which provides strong government support for business and attracts new investment to Northern Ireland. It focuses on financial services, ICT sectors and works in public-private sector partnership.

“Availability of highly skilled work force and lower cost of operations, along with financial support have encouraged many Indian IT firms to come there. In fact, HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra, Firstsource and Polaris Software were among the early companies from India to start BPO and KPO operations here for Vodafone, Citi group and other firms,” adds Wilson.

Belfast, island's capital, has the state-of-the-art, electronics, communication and IT (ECIT) research facility center which helps firms to work on small projects with local assistance. The city is among the list of 31 cities that are most viable BPO centers, according to KPMG's recent report.

Invest NI facilitates companies by providing local talents directly from universities and colleges, along with financial incentives up 15-20 per cent.

According to Barry Clarke, Invest Northern Ireland's senior vice president – India, Northern Ireland is a knowledge-based economy and cosmopolitan culture of largely English speaking talent pool, which always like to take up challenging tasks.

“Indian IT companies which are looking at creating intellectual property (IP) and moving up the value chain are encouraged to work here with local skilled people. This apart, there are no issues such as market protectionism as in the US and other countries that is becoming the key concerns for many Indian firms,” stresses Clarke.

Further, the country has excellent infrastructure with advance telecoms and transport networks, 100 per cent broadband penetrations, availability of office spaces at 40 per cent lower rates that of UK and other places.

Presently, there are about 40 BPOs and the business service sector employs about 14000 people and expected to reach 16000 by 2010.