New research has placed the UK as one of the world’s leading user of multi-sourced outsourcing contracts, adopting the outsourcing approach at nearly four times the rate than the US.

The research by the Information Services Group (ISG) found that nearly 44 per cent of all outsourced functions in the UK are divided between at least five service providers, compared with 36 per cent of outsourced contracts in Australia and New Zealand, while in the US only 12 per cent of contracts were found to involve five or more providers.

The research revealed that only 6 per cent of UK based outsourcing contracts were solely single source.

While the UK’s uptake of multi-sourced outsourcing outperformed uptake in the US and the two pacific countries, European countries including Spain, Portugal and Italy were also found to be stong advocates, with multi-sourcing appearing in 56 per cent of outsourced contracts, multi-sourcing was also found to be employed within 65 per cent of all outsourced contracts in Nordic counties.

President of ISG North Europe, John Keppel, said: “More mature markets, like the US, have previously embraced multi-sourcing but realized it can be difficult to manage the numerous supplier relationships and have swung back towards a model with fewer providers. However, the UK is still clearly in the honeymoon phase and is employing more sophisticated management models, such as the Service Integration and Management (SIAM) method to maximize efficiency.”

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