With offshoring activity expected to decline in the near term, outsourcers must look to domestic markets for growth. And given the high degree of investment in contact center technology and infrastructure, outsourcers can potentially look at launching hosted contact center services to target their existing customers who have internal contact centers as well as the domestic small and medium business market opportunity, especially in India, Australia, and the Philippines. This would help monetize their investments in technology, and potentially drive more business for their BPO services.

Meanwhile, the restructuring and rationalization of financial institutions worldwide may have to be mirrored in the outsourcing business as enterprises will move to consolidate multi-provider, multi-sourced relationships which have previously been the norm.

Frost & Sullivan said that the recent merger of the India-based Aegis BPO with the Filipino outsourcer PeopleSupport might be the first deal in a series of mergers and acquisitions in the APAC region.