Global Sourcing Trends

Originally published January 2006

At the start of 2006, we have once again informally surveyed the views of the partners in Morrison & Foerster’s Global Sourcing Group based in Europe, the United States and Asia. This update collates Morrison & Foerster’s experience of a wide range of sourcing projects in a number of geographic and sectoral markets, comments on the state of those markets and suggests some trends to look out for in 2006.

One view of the state of the sourcing market could be that 2006 will offer more of the same. While valid at one level, we believe that that view overlooks some underlying developments. Twelve months ago, Morrison & Foerster’s annual review of the sourcing market concluded that the key features of the industry during 2005 would be the continued rise of offshoring, the expansion of the business process outsourcing (BPO) market, a continued trend of deal re-alignment and, in particular, the growth of multi-sourcing as