On the front end, Darwin Partners offers subject matter and domain expertise to the financial service, high-tech, and health care industries.

On the back end, Suzoft does software design and development, engineering, localization, and quality assurance work.

The two companies have agreed to a share swap, with no group of owners cashing out or one acquiring the other, said Frank Robinson, CFO at Darwin. "Both parties have agreed to put their companies together to create something unique."

What Robinson calls unique is actually a fairly new trend in the outsourcing business model, with offshore companies trying to move higher up the value chain, according to Barry Rubenstein, senior analyst for application outsourcing at IDC.

The offshore companies need up-front business and IT consultants with vertical expertise in order to get beyond application maintenance and development. "They want to get into system architecture services that are geared to increased revenue," said Rubenstein.