Bangalore: The United Kingdom offers major opportunities for investors in software and IT service industry, through partnerships rather than directly, Anthony Miller, research manager, Ovum Holway, the leading industry analyst company in UK, said on October 29.

The watchword today was that the UK outsourcing market was in transition from infrastructure to business process outsourcing (BPO), especially in white collared administrative intensive processes, he told reporters during a seminar on "Invest UK" in Bangalore.

While in 2001, the IT outsourcing market was 6.9 billion Pounds, BPO accounted for 3.5 billion Pounds. However, the market for BPO "is going to grow significantly faster than IT outsourcing and by 2005 it (BPO) is going to exceed IT outsourcing", he said.

The largest part of the BPO market will be dominated by pure BPO players followed by new US entrants and offshore players like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and Patni, Miller said.

The other sector where Indian companies can participate is the public sector where the British government has made a major commitment to health, he pointed out.

The Indian companies wishing to invest in UK through partnerships must nevertheless ascertain certain things like long-term customer relationship, experienced management and positive cash flow and profits, he said.

Some of the successful Indo-UK partnerships include Mastek with Capita and Wipro Technologies with Accenture, he added.

PTI