2015 will be the year of outcome-based outsourcing solutions and other emerging market drivers, according to advisory firm Pace Harmon. Pace Harmon partner Andy Sealock said that more companies are turning to outcome-based solutions or offshore outsourcing service agreements involving payment for pre-agreed outcomes or results rather than individual provider services.

Companies are also focusing on sophisticated cloud infrastructure and consolidated shared service delivery models. Sealock stressed that organizations should prioritize outsourcing campaigns that serve overall business goals instead of disparate functions.

CIO magazine similarly predicted that offshore outsourcing service agreements will focus on outcomes. CIO analysts expect providers and clients to adopt outcome-based contracts to protect against expensive, upfront costs.

Information Services Group (ISG) principal consultant Scott Feuless told CIO that “the number of service providers each company uses will grow dramatically, driven by growing popularity of cloud in general and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in particular.”

Pace Harmon expects other key trends to emerge in 2015, including cloud-based solutions that tie incentives to performance, sophisticated cloud strategies optimized for analysis and testing, and consolidation of back-office services. Clients are moving away from individual shared services and turning to bundled services to standardize processes and achieve economies of scale.