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Gunter Grittmann
Head of Information and Communication
E-mail: grittmann@zew.de
Phone: +49 (0)621-1235-132
Fax: +49 (0)621-1235-255
Kathrin Böhmer
Public Relations Officer
E-mail: boehmer@zew.de
Phone: +49 (0)621-1235-103
Fax: +49 (0)621-1235-255
In public opinion, outsourcing is usually associated with job cuts. The findings of a current study conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, however, indicate that this is not generally the case. read more
German companies extensively use the option of outsourcing information technology services to external providers (IT outsourcing). In 2009, the share of outsourcing companies was 78 percent - a tremendous increase of 14 percent compared to 2006. This is the finding of a recent representative survey among manufacturing companies with at least five employees in certain service branches, conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). A total of 4,400 companies were surveyed. read more
The trend to use social software applications in companies is continuing. Almost 47 percent of firms in the sector service providers of the information society, such as ICT service providers and knowledge-intensive service providers, use social software applications. The share of service providers using, e.g., discussion forums, social networking services, wikis or weblogs has thus risen by eight percentage points since 2009. In May 2009, the share of companies in this sector incorporating social software into their business routine was about 39 percent, while it was only 32 percent in the previous year. These are the results of a survey among service providers of the information society conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, in cooperation with Verband der Vereine Credit Reform, Neuss, in June 2010. read more
Nowadays, about 64 per cent of the companies in Germany entirely or partly subcontract IT services such as the installation of hardware and software as well as programming services to external providers. However, the outsourcing of IT services beyond national borders (IT offshoring) is performed rather rarely. All in all, just 6 per cent of the outsourcing companies have their IT services generated in other European or non-European countries. read more