According to a CIO survey conducted by Patni, 45 per cent of the respondents prefer multiple vendors for specific projects.
Patni conducted the survey with more than 100 global CIOs and business leaders from the company's customer base across the US, Europe and Asia.
With multi-sourcing gaining traction within the industry, vendor selection is moving away from a country-specific to a more global, talent-based destination mix.
The survey saw 32 per cent still depending largely on India for offshore requirements, but a close 29 per cent selected sourcing requirements from multiple locations.
Twenty-three (23 per cent) of the respondents mix a large local sourcing component with an offshoring component.
Although cost savings is still an important factor in selecting an outsourcing partner, 33 per cent of the respondents indicated that quality of services was the primary concern.
Cultural fit, the top choice in last year's survey, slipped to third place at 15 per cent, while lowest cost was tied with flexibility for fourth in importance at 10 per cent.
While the number of those employing IT-based captives was up slightly from last year, an overwhelming 67 per cent of the respondents indicated that they do not have captive offshore facilities and have no plans to set them up.
Customers see captive facilities as a substantial obligation and as long as they are getting measurable results from their service providers, they do not see any reason to run their own centers offshore.
Technologies such as Web services, service-oriented architecture and business service management were rated high investment areas over the next two years. Increasing emphasis on Web services and SOA indicates that CIOs want technologies that allow more flexibility.
Ninety-four percent (94 per cent) of the respondents cited an increase in their outsourcing budgets overall, with nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) indicating increases ranging from 5-35 per cent.