UK outsourcing market is showing of picking up in the third quarter, according to beancounters at analyst outfit ISG.
Outsourcing had been battered like a Mars Bar in a Scottish chip shop ever since the announcement that the UK would have a crack at leaving the EU.
According to ISG, traditional outsourcing in the UK rose 40 percent year on year to £510 million. To be fair though the third quarter of 2017 was bleak.
Across EMEA, traditional outsourcing grew 55 percent. ISG’s EMEA index also tracks as-a-service (cloud) outsourcing, which grew 56 percent.
Steve Hall, president at ISG, said: “It is encouraging to see EMEA take a leap forward in the adoption of cloud-based solutions.
“Previously lagging the rest of the world, this region appears to be catching up – demonstrating in the last quarter the highest year-over-year growth rates for IaaS and SaaS among the three regions in our ISG Index.”
ISG cited Brexit as the main cause of the recent struggles in the UK market.
Normally the outsourcing market typically hit €800 million in two or three months each year, but has only done that in one quarter since the referendum. The number of UK contracts has increased steadily since the referendum; however the value of deals is smaller.
ISG claimed that the UK is the only market to have seen a long-term decline since the middle of 2016.
Hall added: “The traditional sourcing market in the UK is showing clear signs of caution as the Brexit deadline approaches. Despite a high level of activity in the market, deal sizes are smaller. However, the strong shift to as-a-service sourcing indicates that UK companies, and others across Europe, are recognising the value in remaining agile to help them adapt to uncertain political and economic factors.”
