A day before the release of the 4th quarter financial results of outsourcing company Convergys Corporation (NYSE:CVG), they announced plans to lay off many of its employees, without disclosing how many and which locations would be affected. The company calls it a “fine-tuning” of its business, as a form of global restructuring to align the company’s costs with its revenues. This news was imparted to its employees in preparation for the move on Monday, Jan 25. Little did Convergys’ employees know, however, that a very different announcement was being given in another part of the world.

When I first heard the words “Security Outsourcing” together, the first thought that came to my mind is the word oxymoron. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against the enterprise; it’s just that putting the two words together seemed rather contradictory to me. Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because I recently read an article on how Forrester Research (NASDAQ:FORR) speculates that security outsourcing may be the newest trend in outsourcing for 2010 dispelling previous notions that security outsourcing is in decline. To define the term briefly, security outsourcing is the process of hiring an outsourcing company that handles security such as SAP (NYSE:SAP) or data management to maintain data security for your company. And according to Forrester Research, this is the next up and coming trend for outsourcing.

Keeping abreast with the world is certainly a difficult job, especially now with social media, blogs and other such sources all over the place; it’s becoming difficult to know exactly where to look.  I myself have different favored sources of information, including those for news headlines, and social media, that I search regularly.   On one such occasion, I came across the Top 10 Business Deals of 2009 from TIME.com.  With regards to outsourcing, the item included in the top business deals for 2009 was the HP (NYSE:HPQ) - EDS deal.

Tallying the headlines from December 13-19, the most featured company in outsourcing news was Infosys (NasdaqGS: INFY).  The company has appeared back to back in news bits and clips all over the world and it seems like the company is revving up their strategies for the coming new year.

It seems like when outsourcing companies do damage control, they go all out.  This is following Accenture’s (NYSE:ACN) recent decision to drop Tiger Woods from sponsorship with the company.

If the first few days of a month can be an indication of how well an industry can perform by the months’ end, then this December ’09 should be a great month for the outsourcing industry –bar any mishap of course.  Aside from ushering in the holiday season, several different outsourcing companies have ushered in lucrative agreements since the start of December.

Last June, I wrote an article about UBS (NYSE: UBS) exploring a sale of its BPO and KPO units. In the second week of October, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ: CTSH) bought UBS’ India-based captive service provider for $75 million.