INTRODUCTION

The decade old offshore knowledge services market is at an inflexion point as it prepares for the next wave of growth and maturity. Expectedly, financial services – the largest and the most important segment for the offshore knowledge services market – will play a pivotal role in the growth and evolution of the industry going forward.

As financial institutions recover from the economic crisis, they are seeking to further push the envelope on global sourcing and are increasingly sending complex and “core” services such as financial research and data analytics offshore. This complimentary report analyzes the evolution and maturity of the largest segment in the knowledge services market – research and analytics for financial services.

CONTENTS

The report examines:

• Adoption trends for offshore R&A services
• Value proposition of offshored R&A
• Market evolution and maturity of various financial services R&A functions and sub-functions
• Case studies of value delivered to buyers
• Capabilities and future growth themes of three R&A specialists
  • Amba Research
  • Evalueserve
  • Irevna
• Key implications for buyers

Some of the findings in this report among others are:

• The offshore R&A market has grown at an annual rate of 20 percent over the last three years to reach US$1.0-1.2 billion in 2009. Given the market is relatively nascent, Everest estimates less than 10 percent of the addressable market opportunity has been penetrated
• The financial services sector is the largest adopter of the offshore R&A market and commands 40-45 percent of the industry share
• Financial research led by equity research is the most mature area for offshore R&A delivery. Wealth management, trading and sales support, and buy-side research are emerging as demand sectors
• Through their focused investments in building scale, capability development and domain expertise, specialist R&A suppliers (considered the pioneers of the industry) continue to have a distinctive positioning for financial services buyers