After the last Round-Up, it would be hard for this week not to be a walk in the park for outsourcing news. So, continue reading safe in the knowledge that I have no colossal announcements to make. Before I commence this wondrous journey into the chasm of all things positive and exciting, I must first highlight one (just one) not so positive piece of outsourcing news.

I am more than certain that you are all aware of the effect the economic downturn has had on the industry (yes, that old chestnut). This week saw a new report from TPI that said the number of outsourcing deals awarded fell 7.5 percent from the first quarter to the second quarter to a total of 135.

The TPI Index, which follows commercial outsourcing contracts of US$25 million or more, found that the market in the first half of 2009 had 11 percent fewer contracts with 22 percent lower total contract value than for the comparable six-month period in 2008. However the report also highlighted that IT outsourcing is showing early signs of stabalising. It seems the trend towards smaller outsourcing deals continues apace.

Right, now that is out of the way we can take a look at the exciting outsourcing prospects reported on this week.

Firstsource Solutions have conducted research that shows more than half of telecoms companies (55 percent) plan to increase outsourcing in the next 12 months. As always cutting costs is the main driver for telcos’ outsourcing strategies, according to the research of 85 leading telecoms companies across the world.

Those telecoms companies surveyed that already outsource reported substantial cost savings: 67 percent said that they had cut their costs by up to 40 percent through outsourcing, and nearly 20 percent reported cost savings of more than 40 percent.

Although cutting costs will continue to be the main catalyst for outsourcing, telcos reported other important drivers, such as improving the quality of customer service, including through tapping into a larger pool of experienced customer management staff, and lengthening the customer service day. Telcos also want to reduce customer churn. I told you I would have some exciting news.

Even more exciting news comes in the form of fibre optic cable being laid in East Africa this week. SEACOM, a private sector funded undersea fibre optic cable, has finally gone live across East Africa bringing super-fast communications to a previously satellite-only country. Local businesses are expecting significant benefits from the new 1,28 Terabytes per second (Tb/s) cable as large cost reductions and new connectivity spreads across the region.

The cable system, linking south and east Africa to global networks via India and Europe, overcame thousands of miles of rough seas, Somali pirates and huge technical difficulties to be switched-on across Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique this Thursday under the eyes of the global media. Thankfully, the launch went without a hitch with key SEACOM executives giving live broadcasts and presentations using the new system.

Local outsourcers are pushing the region as the newest location on the block for offshoring. East Africa is another area I did not flag up as an up and coming outsourcing destination but their ICT Board and BPO Society have big plans says otherwise. Once again, I stand corrected.

News just in means I may have to break my promise. A decidedly sticky situation has arisen for Spinvox, that erstwhile doyen of the voice recognition industry. The BBC says they’ve been using offshore BPO providers to listen-to and transcribe for their voicemail-to-text service. Spinvox maintain the service is almost entirely done via clever computers with some human interaction where the technology needs help learning words and so on. Who’s telling the truth is yet to be decided. The debate rumbles on as we go to our virtual press; watch this space and the twitterverse where a increasingly interesting multi-logue is occurring, to find out the latest.

So, readers, did I deliver? Was that a short, but incredibly sweet journey through the weeks outsourcing news? Fingers crossed the good news keeps flooding in so next week will be as much of a pleasure to write (not comparative to the pleasure you as readers have experienced in reading it of course!).

Have a great weekend.