India's National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) said Monday that an economic slump in the U.S. will benefit Indian outsourcers, as U.S. customers look to cut costs.

Outsourcing declined worldwide by 18 percent to US$16.4 billion in the second quarter because of weak demand in the Americas and an overall drop in the number of large contracts awarded, sourcing data and advisory firm TPI said on Wednesday.

If there were a relatively straightforward way for an IT leader to boost his company's bottom line by millions of dollars a year, chances are he wouldn't ignore it. But that's just what many CIOs are doing as a result of poor outsourcing management.

India's business process outsourcing (BPO) market is growing fast, attracting both local outsourcers and multinational services companies, according to a study by Gartner.

The proposed acquisition of an IT services company by India’s largest business process outsourcing (BPO) firm, Genpact, has fueled a debate on whether pure-play BPO firms in the country can survive independently.

MindTree, a mid-size Indian outsourcer, has developed its own remote IT infrastructure management service delivery platform, MWatch, in a bid to differentiate its remote management services from those of its larger competitors.

Despite the economic recession that started in 2008, many IT service providers didn't see the expected boon to business in 2009. Some outsourcers struggled to a degree alongside the rest of the high-tech industry, but IT services experts say they started to see a return to growth toward the end of 2009. That means 2010 could find many outsourcing providers taking advantage of hot technology trends such as cloud computing to sell their services into smaller IT shops. Mike Slavin, partner and practice leader for Global IT Advisory Services at outsourcing industry advisory and consulting firm TPI, shares his take on the coming year and the outsourcing industry with Network World Senior Editor Denise Dubie.