The Finnish project services market developed strongly during 2007 and grew by 6.8% to reach a value of -1.091 million. The start of 2008 has also been strong but we do see signs of a weakening market at this very moment (mid-year) and believe that the autumn will show lower growth. There are major shifts taking place in the market and the current offshore wave represents the biggest of them. All vendors need to figure out how to position themselves with regard to offshoring.

"As the scenario is now shifting from a market focused on growth to a market focused on cost and internal efficiencies, the range of opportunities changes as well," said Nils Molin, managing director of IDC Sweden. "However, our base scenario is positive, and we believe that the underlying theme, 'realizing the benefits from the Internet', is strong enough to provide a shelter against a recession in the economy. That's also the background to the very modest changes that we have made to our forecast for the coming years."