In today’s highly unpredictable economy, businesses constantly seek ways to cut costs while ensuring operational efficiency to stay competitive. The UAE market is no exception, which is why the outsourcing industry in the region has experienced significant growth in recent years.
However, the outsourcing sector has changed significantly thanks to the latest IT outsourcing industry trends. Currently, the IT outsourcing market size or the outsourcing market revenue in the UAE is expected to reach US$1.39bn in 2024. Many notable IT industry trends are fueling the growth of the outsourcing sector. This also helps expand your business in Dubai and other regions of the UAE as you will have more time to focus on new clients in the UAE to grow your revenue.
Let’s explore the emerging outsourcing trends set to redefine digital transformation. But before that, let’s take a quick look at the benefits of technology outsourcing.
Benefits of IT Outsourcing
Outsourcing solutions have the following benefits:
- Save money because you don’t need to maintain an in-house IT department with outsourcing solutions.
- Gain improved flexibility and agility as outsourcing companies can quickly adapt to businesses’ needs.
- Get access to a dedicated team from your technology outsourcing providers.
- Increased productivity because outsourcing companies will allow you to focus on core business activities.
- Access to global resources and expertise with cloud infrastructure management, data security, etc.
- There is no visa quota limitations.
IT outsourcing is expected to bring significant benefits not only to businesses but also to software development companies and data security providers. To ensure hiring a quality outsourcing provider, working with reliable and reputable HR services in the UAE is important.
IT Outsourcing Trends 2024
The following list highlights outsourcing trends expected to shape the coming years, ranging from software development outsourcing and cloud-native services to outsourcing security and cybersecurity solutions.
Low-code software development outsourcing
Software development outsourcing is a major contributor to the growing IT outsourcing market. In recent years, however, low-code development has emerged as one of the fastest-growing trends in software development.
Low-code platforms offer visual, drag-and-drop interfaces and pre-built components, making app building easier for business and IT users with minimal coding. This reduces IT dependencies, cuts costs, and accelerates companies’ digital transformations worldwide. Outsourcing software development trends further reduces this cost, saving businesses a significant amount of money and time.
As the demand for low-coding software development services grows, companies are increasingly looking for outsourcing software providers with low-code capabilities.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Generative AI in IT Outsourcing
Artificial intelligence is another rapidly emerging trend in the outsourcing industry. Combined with automation and machine learning, it is transforming businesses’ digital transformation processes. Artificial intelligence is becoming an essential technology for many business processes, including sales, customer service, analytics, software development services, etc.
Because of the growing adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning, companies are looking for software outsourcing providers with excellent artificial intelligence skills.
Robotic process automation (RPA) for IT Outsourcing in 2024
RPA can greatly influence the future of global outsourcing services, from software outsourcing to technology outsourcing. It’s a form of automation that mimics human actions, such as typing, copying, and pasting. In addition, RPA can work 24/7 without delays, mistakes, or fatigue. You can scale them up and down as needed.
Because of these benefits, RPA is one of the outsourcing trends expected to dominate in the coming years. RPA has many pros for technology outsourcing, such as reduced costs and risks, automation of repetitive tasks, faster delivery of projects, particularly software development services, etc. So, Businesses continuously look for global outsourcing services that excel at RPA and relevant technologies.
Enhanced Focus on Cybersecurity or Data Security in Outsourcing
In terms of outsourcing industry trends, the UAE has started prioritizing cybersecurity. The top businesses are seeking to hire top-notch outsourcing security services. It includes outsourcing providers with expertise in the latest cyber threats and a strong commitment to data protection. With this, they have more time to concentrate on core business functions and the confidence that their data and systems are well-protected. That’s why businesses are looking for reliable outsourcing security services.
The UAE’s booming economy makes it an appealing target for cybercriminals seeking financial gain or aiming to cause major disruption.
To provide protection, we can’t forget the role of cybersecurity for UAE companies.
Importance Of Cybersecurity For Organizations
Sensitive Data Protection: Cybersecurity protects sensitive government, financial, and personal data, which is often stored electronically. As a result, it has become an integral part of software development services.
Building Trust: Cybersecurity fosters trust in online transactions. This online interaction is crucial for the UAE’s thriving digital marketplace.
Infrastructure: Companies leverage cybersecurity to protect essential infrastructures like power grids, transportation systems, and communication networks from potential attacks.
Co-pilots as virtual assistants as one of the Latest Trends
One of the outsourcing trends poised to shape the industry’s future is the wide adoption of co-pilots. Co-pilots are your AI assistant at your fingertips. Utilizing artificial intelligence, the technology helps streamline the product design and development process, making it one of the most anticipated software development trends.
Cloud Computing or Cloud-Based outsourcing
The UAE businesses are adopting multi-cloud strategies for cloud infrastructure management. IT outsourcing involves utilizing multiple cloud providers. Each is chosen for its specific strengths and functionalities. It allows companies to:
- Optimize costs
- Leverage best-in-class services
- Avoid vendor lock-in.
In UAE outsourcing, the integration of the multi-cloud strategy for cloud infrastructure management requires expertise from outsourcing companies. Capable of handling the complexities of diverse cloud environments. It ensures seamless data flow and application performance across the cloud ecosystem.
Multi-Cloud Strategies
To help companies opt for the best cloud service providers, here are the multi-cloud strategies:
- The UAE businesses leverage multiple cloud providers to find the most cost-effective options for specific workloads.
- Companies always try to pick the best service provider for each need be it data storage or AI, across different cloud platforms. This strategy safeguards against dependence on a single vendor’s ecosystem and pricing.
- Workload distribution across clouds by cloud service providers improves overall security and redundancy in case of outages.
- Successful multi-cloud adoption requires the best cloud service providers with the skill to manage complexities across various cloud environments.
Sustainable Outsourcing
Sustainable outsourcing is one of the growing outsourcing trends. Sustainable outsourcing enables businesses to select suppliers and materials with minimal negative impact on society, the economy, and the environment while maximizing positive outcomes. All the best global outsourcing services now focus on sustainability in the outsourcing landscape. This has become one of the most discussed technology outsourcing trends for every entity, be it a software development company or cloud service provider.
Multi-Vendor Outsourcing
Multi-vendor outsourcing involves outsourcing to outsourcing solutions providers. These are the best outsourcing solutions for large-scale IT projects. You hire different outsourcing companies for every function, including a software development company, cloud infrastructure management provider, process outsourcing, and more.
Expected Outsourcing Trends in the IT outsourcing industry
The following are the growing outsourcing trends expected in the future years:
- Value over price
- New outsourcing areas like big data and cloud-native outsourcing services
- Outsourcing cloud-based needs like cloud computing and cloud-native outsourcing services
- Adoption of Agile and DevOps
Emerging Outsourcing Dynamics
Other outsourcing trends poised to shape the future of the outsourcing landscape:
- Almost every software development company harnesses AI and machine learning.
- Surprising focus on cloud-native outsourcing services and cloud technology.
- Securing the future with data security and cybersecurity.
- Remote work becoming the new normal.
So, these are the growing outsourcing trends you must watch.
Future of Outsourcing
As the UAE is fast becoming a hub of business and innovations, the future of outsourcing looks bright. You can anticipate significant growth in outsourcing market revenue, contributing to a larger share of the global outsourcing market. Beyond the trends already mentioned, other notable developments include hybrid outsourcing, emerging software development practices, and an increased focus on cloud technology. With these advancements, the UAE is poised to become a key player among the global outsourcing leaders.
