CIO.com has listed its top 10 outsourcing trends for 2016. Lawyers, consultants, and representatives from service providers expect a number of industry shifts in 2016, including an increased focus on cybersecurity, an expansion in the number and kinds of service providers, and changing leverage and timing in outsourcing deals.
Experts predict that cybersecurity issues will be a key influence in outsourcing strategy over the next year. Companies will face a rising number of increasingly creative threats that seek to exploit any security weakness, and service providers will have to find better ways to address companies’ security concerns. Additionally, experts predict that companies may opt to engage specialized security vendors that offer “Security-as-a-Service” capabilities to protect company data. This may lead to another predicted trend: a growing number of service providers. Companies will continue to engage information technology outsourcing, business process outsourcing, and cloud services providers, but those interviewed expect to see a growing list of options for emerging and digital technology service providers. Additionally, product-oriented vendors will start offering customers more managed service capabilities.
Finally, experts named two shifts related to outsourcing deals. First, to achieve greater market penetration and to attract larger companies as customers, service providers will need to take a more flexible approach to negotiating contract terms. Second, companies will use sizable negotiating teams to close outsourcing deals faster.