The North American strategic document outsourcing (SDO) market will grow to $17.6bn this year, a 2.8% increase from $17.2bn in 2010, according to IT market research firm Gartner.
The company added that the SDO market is expected to reach $18.3bn in 2012 and reach $20.8bn in 2015.
SDO is the subset of business process outsourcing (BPO) focused on the publication of customer communications, including content creation, multimedia presentation and incoming document processing. The outsourced documents may be transactional forms, sales collateral, direct-marketing materials and more. The documents can be published in physical or electronic media, or a combination of multiple media.
Gartner research director Pete Basiliere said business conditions through the latter half of 2011 and into 2012 will play a big part in the continued growth of the market.
Basiliere added, "If recessionary conditions persist, then the inability to access capital needed to fund equipment or software refresh projects may drive more buyers to abandon and sell off their costly in-house operations, which could result in greater revenue increases for the providers."
"However, many organisations will be reluctant to actually sign an SDO contract for fear the transition may negatively impact their ongoing operations at a time they can least afford a disruption that cuts into revenue or profits, which could impact the outlook for the market," Basiliere said.
Gartner also said that the inbound services segment will experience strong growth over the forecast period, beginning with a 5% revenue increase from 2010 to 2011 and averaging 6.5% revenue growth through 2015. In-process management services will experience a 2.9% increase in 2011, and outbound services will grow 1.9 percent in 2011, said Gartner.
"Enterprises can save 20 percent to 40 percent by outsourcing print purchases to an SDO provider who works with the enterprise not only to select the right printing companies, but also to enforce the common design elements that save money while protecting the brand image and more," said Basiliere.
Cost containment, reduction of primary on-site storage capacity associated with archiving and e-discovery are the primary drivers for outsourcing the archive function. This segment is forecast to grow 2% in 2011 and 4% in 2012, added Gartner.
