The European Outsourcing Association annual summit all went well. In the end people were being turned away so in terms of getting delegates out for the event, it was a great success. In fact it has taken me nearly a week to blog the research results, partly because the after conference party was so good…

I ran an interactive session at the event, where I used some electronic kit to get immediate feedback from the audience. I’ll try summarising some of the feedback from the conference delegates.

To start with, delegates feel the globalisation of the outsourcing industry will soon see one of the major Indian players acquiring a large European or US provider. It’s a rumour that keeps returning to the fore, but with everyone believing it, will it really happen?

Some 75 per cent of respondents believe that such an acquisition is imminent. Consolidation was earmarked as a rapidly increasing industry trend by 68 per cent of delegates, in light of the recent acquisition of EDS by HP. Some other key findings that came up during the session include:

•    Continental Europe is no longer as protectionist about outsourcing and offshoring as it once was – it is now an accepted business practice across the continent. Only eight per cent of respondents believe that European countries such as France and Germany are far behind in accepting outsourcing as a useful business strategy.

•    New nearshore locations, particularly Romania and Bulgaria thanks to their recent entrance into the European Union, have brought a new attractiveness to the European offshoring market. Some 59 per cent of respondents believed Romania and Bulgaria are now more attractive to work with, while only nine per cent believed the attraction had been reduced.

•    The delegates realised that Eastern European nations do not have the scale of staff to resource huge outsourcing deals, with the majority (58 per cent) believing that different geographies are suited to different types of outsourcing projects. Only 17 per cent believed that Indian providers are leaps and bounds ahead of all other geographies.

I also asked some questions on the global credit crunch and the potential for recession. It’s not specifically related to outsourcing, but it does affect outsourcing decisions so I wanted to gauge the mood of those present. The first surprise (considering the doom and gloom presented each day in the media) was that 64 per cent of delegates had not seen any impact on their business, so far.

I tried to check on perceptions, rather than actuals, by asking if delegates were worried. Even then, 43 per cent were not worried and 17 per cent were not sure – a lot more than the worried 40 per cent. Then I asked if a recession might even be a good thing for the global outsourcing market, encouraging people to explore outsourcing where they might not have before. Some 64 per cent agreed that it would be a good development with 19 per cent not sure – a huge majority that would actively like to see a recession!

So it’s an interesting mix of results. Certainly the European market is maturing quickly, both as consumers of services and as providers, but the really interesting result for me was that no one in this industry appears to be worried about the credit crunch. Pass the Bollinger…