Research has been coming out of the sourcing industry’s ears this week, with sector giants such as Gartner, the IOD and TPI offering up their predictions for the outsourcing sector based on extensive studies.

Gartner published research suggesting that financial services spending on IT is on the up once more, and predicted that up to a third of banks could invest in new IT by mid-2010, while TPI indicated on Friday that the number of outsourcing contracts awarded globally should rise in 2010, as organisations look for new ways to get the most out of their business operations as the UK crawls out of recession.

If these herald an upturn in activity and a general optimism towards the global outsourcing sector’s progression however, the IOD’s research indicated a more worrying trend in its report on Friday. It suggested that disorganised outsourcing and procurement is squandering money, and at least £25bn could be saved for the public purse by restructuring procurement and using more shared services and outsourcing.

It’s been a busy week for Virgin, too, with big outsourcing news across two of its departments. Early in the week it was announced that Virgin Atlantic had confirmed plans to open a new call centre this autumn, creating more than 200 jobs.

Then on Thursday, it was revealed that Virgin Trains and Capgemini were entering into a three-year multi-million pound deal, which will see the outsourcer manage the train company’s entire IT infrastructure. The impressive contract is a further renewal of a relationship between the two companies that started in 1999.

And finally, security giant G4S could be the latest firm to reap the rewards of the outsourcing phenomena thanks to the increasing popularity of electronic tagging of criminals around the world, the company said on Wednesday. According to the company, the popular tagging trend will continue to grow as other governments outsource their requirements this year.