This Competitive Analysis ranks by revenue the chief players in business outsourcing services (BOS - essentially the combination of business process outsourcing and related processing services) in Western Europe during the calendar year 2007. It analyses the strengths and weaknesses of key vendors as they strand in late 2008 and it looks at the key demand-side and supply-side factors that are driving (or inhibiting) growth in the BOS market in 2008 and beyond.

"Demand for business outsourcing in Western Europe remains strong, thanks to vendors focusing on cutting customers' costs while raising the quality of outsourced processes," said Douglas Hayward, research manager at IDC. "But with buyers of business outsourcing services less keen on 'big bang' process transformation projects, the challenge for vendors is to transform their clients' processes more slowly by importing 'industrial engineering' techniques from more mature industries such as manufacturing."