OutsourceWorld Offered Global Perspective of IT Marketplace during TECHXNY

New Events and Road Shows Planned for 2004

PRNewswire
NEW YORK
Oct 14, 2003

The fourth edition of OutsourceWorld, which took place September 16-18, 2003 and was co-located with TECHXNY, exceeded all expectations as it returned to New York for its second time. More than 25,000 attendees (audit pending) had the opportunity to visit nearly 100 global companies from fourteen countries including India, Romania, Egypt, China, Ukraine, Philippines, Nepal, and Bulgaria during the three-day event.

"OutsourceWorld is one of the few venues in which attendees can truly gain a broad perspective of the global marketplace," said Bill Gargano, Senior Vice-President, Sales & Marketing, for Epam, based in New York.

The informative OutsourceWorld conference program also received high praise from attendees and exhibitors. As a complement to the exhibits, the educational track hosted IT outsourcing experts from worldwide companies including EDS, Accenture, IBM, Everest Group and JP Morgan Chase offering informative presentations and case studies.

The highlight of the conference program was the controversial panel "Outsourcing: Friend or Foe?" on Wednesday, September 17th. This highly vocal session attracted a six-feet deep standing-room-only crowd. Of utmost concern to the audience was the perception that outsourcing will cost Americans many US jobs. However, the expert panel stated that although offshore outsourcing may initially mean short-term job losses, it will be of great benefit for the future of companies and long-term savings -- inevitably leading to more jobs for Americans in the long term.

Keith Fiveson, a principal consultant at outsourcing company ITESA in New York, and one of the panel members, stated that, "one benefit of IT outsourcing is that it gives [US] companies more opportunity for innovation."

By outsourcing back-end programming and labor services, US companies can reinvest the funds that they save into their core business and the innovation of new products and programs.

OutsourceWorld, which is owned and produced by ITD Group, also garnered extensive press coverage from CNN News, CNN Money, PR Newswire, InfoWorld, ComputerWorld, and the New York Post as well as the technology trade publications of CMP Media. Of interest was the growing importance of Central and Eastern European companies as competitive outsourcing providers to India. "We feel that with a little more preparation next year Bulgaria could definitely enter the OutsourceWorld on a bigger scale and make its presence known," said Kalin Kassabov, Executive Director, VIE Corp., New York.

Eric Candle, President of U.S.-Ukraine Digital Alliance, also felt that OutsourceWorld New York provided good exposure for Ukraine's offerings. "My partners from Ukraine were very pleased with the calibre of the visitors at OutsourceWorld," he said, "and the results of their meetings. We are looking forward to future OutsourceWorld events."

OutsourceWorld is becoming the definitive event for the IT Outsourcing industry and is expanding with the introduction of OutsourceWorld Austral-asia and Middle East. Also in 2004, Face-2-Face Road Shows will be launched in the US and Europe, featuring highly focused conferences and specifically targeted pre-arranged meetings.

About ITD Group

International Trade & Development Group is recognized through its association with National and International Governments and corporations as one of Britain's leading international development organizations. A collective of highly trained and experienced international sales and marketing managers with 22 years of international experience through the development of over 80 marketing campaigns and 170 trade exhibitions in Europe, USA, the Middle East, Asia and the CIS. www.itdgroup.com

  CONTACT:  James Freeman
            jfreeman@outsourceworld.org
            +44-20-7613-5332

SOURCE: ITD Group

CONTACT: James Freeman, +44-20-7613-5332, jfreeman@outsourceworld.org,
for ITD Group

Web site: http://www.itdgroup.com/

Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/120824.html