IDC's Worldwide Services Contracts Analysis product provides access to the Services Contracts Database online tool and supporting research that will help vendor, end-user, and financial services communities monitor the demand for services contracts as well as the subsequent performance of specific vendors. With contracts signed as early as 1989 and more than 21,000 services contracts, IDC's Services Contracts Database represents the largest and richest information repository of services deals in the world. The online database offers tangible metrics to evaluate customer buying patterns in service offerings and vendor track records across service types, industries, and geographies.

The database provides comprehensive country coverage capturing deal activity in more than 135 countries around the world across all industry segments. Services engagements captured in the database include the following:

• Business process outsourcing
• Processing services
• IT and applications outsourcing
• Network management services
• Desktop management services
• Business and IT consulting
• Systems integration
• Custom application development
• Software support and deployment
• Hardware support and deployment
• Network consulting and integration
• IT education and training

• Services contract valuation and services pricing models
• Contract pricing and benchmark metrics
• Customer metrics and characteristics
• Prime versus subcontractor relationships
• Services engagement details and analysis
• Geographic scope and sourcing
• Industry adoption
• Losing bidders and contract cancellations
• One-year and five-year contract trends
• Customer buying criteria and winning factors

1. What competitor contracts are up for renewal over the next 12-18 months?
2. What contracts do my clients or prospects currently have with my competitors?
3. How do the value and length of services contracts compare across various service types, countries, and vertical industries?
4. What end-user buying trends are emerging?
5. Are services contracts becoming shorter in length or lower in total contract value over time?
6. Which vendors are most successful at penetrating any given geography, industry, or service area?

IDC's Worldwide Services Contracts Analysis product delivers, via the Internet, unlimited access to compare and analyze specific services engagements. Vendor contract engagements are added to the database on a continual basis and are examined through written research and analysis. The database captures the activity of more than 10,000 customers being serviced by over 1,800 services vendors, including:

Accenture, ACS, Alcatel-Lucent, Atos Origin, BearingPoint, BT Global Services, Capgemini, CGI, Convergys, CSC, Dell, Deloitte, EDS, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Getronics, HCL, Hewitt Associates, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Keane, Lockheed Martin, NCR, Nortel, Northrop Grumman, Oracle, Perot Systems, SAIC, Siemens, TCS, T-Systems, Unisys, and Wipro.

Throughout the year, this product will offer insight into the latest trends impacting the market. Potential studies include:

This study provides an in-depth look at an outsourcing contract, based on one supply-side interview and one demand-side interview with a CXO-level executive at a services vendor and/or a decision maker within the customer organization. The study includes relevant information on deciding factors of contract win, interesting and relevant specifics related to the scope of the contract, successes and failures of the ensuing relationship, and more.

This document offers a detailed look at the top 100 outsourcing contracts of the previous year, ranked by total contract value. The study compares and analyzes the contracts based on value, length, time of the year they were signed, geography, industry, winning vendors, and services provided.

As a privately held company, IDC believes that our customers are our primary constituency. A large percentage of every revenue dollar is reinvested back into our products, including more analysts, more geographic coverage, and extensive primary research.

Our steady growth over the past 10-plus years reflects our commitment to investing in our customers.