According to the recent Industry Research Report (May 2010), in 2010-2011 the global IT Outsourcing landscape is going to observe the following key trends:

1) The key areas of increased outsourcing scope are expected to be in areas with heavy low-cost labor arbitrage support (nearshore and offshore) – software applications, call center, engineering management, finance & accounting, analytics and human resources. In some cases, half companies interviewed will be increasing outsourcing scope
2) The middle-market ($750m-$3000m annual revenues) is poised to be the most active
3) The principle drivers behind outsourcing are cost reduction, desire to globalize business operations and to transform / re-engineer business processes
4) The main Inhibitors are other priorities brought on by the economic crisis and internal politics / resistance to change
5) When evaluating vendors, global scale, financial stability and operational excellence are the table-stakes. Business transformation capabilities are the differentiators
6) Customer-willingness to evaluate cloud-based “business utility” offerings is strong as they increasingly look at hybrid IT/BPO solutions
7) There are strong signs of increased adoption of industry-specific ITO/BPO solutions, most notably in the Financial Services and Life Sciences sectors

Overall, 2010 is primed to be a very strong year for outsourcing adoption worldwide.

Source: "The IT Outsourcing and Business Process Outsourcing Industry Landscape in 2010" by Horses for Sources