Sourcing Lessons From 2008 EMEA IT Outsourcing Deal Activity

The EMEA enterprise IT outsourcing market had a very active year in 2008, with 341 large outsourcing contracts in Forrester's deal-tracking survey for the year. This was identical to the number of deals tracked in 2007, and up substantially from the 306 deals observed in 2006. Providers like EDS, Atos Origin, T-Systems, Capgemini, and Siemens IT Solutions and Services dominated the EMEA market in terms of large deals signed. This document lays out the major areas of activity in the market and explores the lessons arising for sourcing and vendor management specialists from the market trends, buyer behavior, and supplier profiles described. It also examines some implications of global economic conditions for the IT outsourcing industry and points to some of the areas of future change that sourcing specialists should watch for in the market.