IT Sourcing Europe, a UK-based nearshore IT outsourcing (ITO) research and advisory company, has recently completed its Dutch ITO survey, conducted in the frames of the All-European ITO research 2011. The survey was conducted online in February 2011 and taken by the 469 Dutch companies of different sizes and industry sectors. Forty-five percent of the survey participants admitted outsourcing their software development (SD) and/or some element(s) of the IT function nearshore, offshore or within the Netherlands, while fifty-five percent developed their software / IT solutions within own house.

The major trends benchmarked in the course of the survey demonstrate that in 2011 the Dutch ITO landscape looks healthier and more mature compared to the 2010 indications.

Overall, more Dutch companies began to adopt the outsourced software development at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011, according to the research. Currently, non-outsourcing companies outnumber those that outsource their SD/IT by only 3.6%, while in 2010 non-outsourcers outnumbered outsourcers by 26.8%.

Regarding the value of the outsourced projects, the following trends are observed in 2011 compared to 2010: the number of the €0-49K projects increased by almost 10%, the number of the €50-199K projects dropped by 4%, the number of the €200-499K projects dropped by 2% and the number of the €500+K projects dropped by 5%. The finding proves 2011 to be the year of smaller ITO contracts. It is partly explained by the increased demand for / more active use of the Cloudsourcing solutions by the Dutch ITO buyers - up 18.3% from 2010.

While in 2010 the vast majority of the outsourcing companies partnered with their service providers via the traditional Offshore/Nearshore Development Centers (O/NDC) or fixed price projects, in 2011 there are more Dutch companies that tend to run own dedicated / virtual teams located remotely to complete the projects (up 34% from 2010). This trend can be linked to another trend observed: in 2011 more Dutch companies from innovative lucrative niches such as mobile computing, casual games development, social media, 3D animation and augmented reality begin to adopt the outsourced application development (up 32% from 2010). Since most of these companies are innovative startups and/or venture capital funded companies, they strive to have as much managerial control of their projects as possible and predictable ITO agendas, which are hard to achieve when using DDC or Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) models.

Overall, in 2010 the vast majority of the Dutch ITO buyers were somewhat satisfied with their ITO partners and service providers, while in 2011 the majority of outsourcers are very satisfied with their partners – up 20.4% from last year. On the other hand, the percentage of ITO buyers who are very dissatisfied with their ITO providers increased by 5.1% in 2011, compared to 2010.

More thought-provoking findings will be available in the Dutch ITO Intelligence Report 2011.