Tholons announces services globalization trends for 2007

BANGALORE: Tholons, a Washington, D.C. based Investment, Advisory and Management Firm for IT, Business and Knowledge Services Globalization announced its forecast for IT/BPO trends for 2007.

Tholons predicts 10 major trends in Services Globalization for 2007:

-- Small and Medium Enterprises, driven by Private Equity investors, will become significant participants in services globalization

-- Firms will adopt the "Cities of Excellence" model, sourcing services from the best location for respective ITO/BPO domains / processes

-- Multi-Sourcing will dominate as mega-deals will be sourced to a mix of Tier I and "best of breed" Tier II service providers

-- ITO/BPO growth will be supply-constrained in an extremely strong demand market

-- Globally, service providers will witness a significant resource crunch

-- Engineering Services, R&D Services, ERP, Infrastructure Management, Product Development and Healthcare will see increased traction in 2007

-- Captives will see heightened activity in 2007, with parent companies considering spin-offs to cash out

-- Offshoring of customer-facing processes will slow down, and some may even move back onshore / nearshore

-- Tier II and Tier III service providers will spread their global footprint by making significant overseas acquisitions

-- India will continue to be the leading destination for ITO/BPO. The Philippines will come in a distant second, and China will trail behind for next several years

For the complete report, log onto www.tholons.com

CIOL Bureau