Global-O&O

Its off-shoring strategy served the Plano, Texas-based technology services company well in 2007.

It landed the number 19 spot on Fortune 500’s list of 20 most profitable tech companies by cutting costs.  Its revenue grew four per cent, and profits increased 52 per cent to $716 million for the year.

With EDS set to release its first-quarter numbers, company brass indicate that the outsourcing trend is only going to grow.

Where $19 billion was spent in 2007, more than $20 billion will be spent this year, according to EDS chairman Ron Rittenmeyer.

“It’s not just a passing fancy,” he told ITBusiness.ca. “It is a pretty major change that is going to continue. If you can find high quality talent at a third of the price, it’s not too hard to see why you’d do this.”

That sentiment was echoed across EDS executives gathered at the site of their title-sponsored PGA tournament, the EDS Byron Nelson Championship.

With 43 per cent of their employees now in off-shore locations, the driving factors behind their out-sourcing practice are North America’s rising costs and shallow talent pools compared to other global markets.

“There’s phenomenal amounts of IT talent, it may just not be in our country,” says Charlie Feld, vice president of application services. “When I talk about the talent shortage, I focus specifically on the Americas and the U.S.”

The American education system doesn’t encourage students to pursue math and science the same way other countries do, Feld adds.