Well, after three days, NASSCOM 2010 has ended. An event that has become truly global in both scope and interest, and included national delegations from the countries and regions we have grown to expect to see, such as Eastern Europe, but encouragingly, also from new and more exotic ones such as Colombia and Brazil.

Looking back over the last few days, it seems prudent to review the predictions for 2010 and 2011. I spoke to a great many CxOs over the three days and no two discussions were the same. Nonetheless, there were a few excerpts of crystal ball gazing of particular note, especially on the final day. One such was from Arvind Thakur, the CEO of NIIT Technologies, one of India’s top 20 IT service providers, who commented that there will be three key verticals of opportunity over the next 12 months or more. Given the ageing population globally, there will be substantial opportunities in the healthcare sector as more and more investment becomes necessary. Also, as has already been seen in certain fields, climate change will only grow in importance. Lastly, following global unrest in recent months, investment in security and its surrounding systems will grow substantially.

To add to this, Baru Rao, CEO of Cap Gemini, a global leader in consulting technology, outsourcing and local professional services, asserted that consortia will grow in number. Cross-industry collaborations of banks and manufacturers, for example, may ‘club together’ and outsource to a certain supplier – according to Rao, this is a tried and tested course of action that is only likely to develop.

But these growing opportunities and changes in approach will not be without challenges. Indeed, Francois Enaud, CEO of Steria, an IT and BPO provider, commented that the greatest test for 2010 will be the need for businesses throughout the sourcing industry to move from a solution-driven approach to a purely service-driven one, perhaps even costed on a “pay per use” structure.

Of course, in early 2009, the Satyam ‘crisis’ was the biggest sourcing story for some time. While its effects do not seem to have been as disastrous as first thought, it seemed pertinent a year on to see how the Indian market reacted, and therefore survived. Abhijit Mazumder, the Head of Strategic Solutions at TCS, an IT services, business solutions and outsourcing organisation, told me that apart from the obvious economic ramifications, one of the greatest effects was psychological – a great deal of effort had to be put into mitigating the fact that suddenly a market that saw perennial growth year on year was suddenly not only going to fail to grow, but potentially plummet. As Mazumder explained, the winning strategy for the Indian companies that confounded expectations was to concentrate on streamlining and securing the core of the company so that when the good times returned, they were ready to respond and capitalise.

So with these comments, and those from the first two days, it appears that there is a consensus on three trends that we will see develop throughout the remainder of this year, and most likely beyond. Firstly, sourcing strategies are no longer about costs, but are now increasingly centred on customer value – a move that is being driven by supplier and customer alike. Linked to this, pricing models will change to being based upon outcomes not inputs, and lastly, platform-based solutions will gradually replace bespoke solutions in popularity.

Doubtless, 2010 will be an exciting year for sourcing and, the threat of another unexpected Satyam-esque incident aside, has the potential to be one of the key industries to be a part of.

So, until next time...