EDS Takes CRM Deployment For Industry Group To Near-Shore LocationEDS Takes CRM Deployment For Industry Group To Near-Shore Location

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, an organization created by the mortgage banking industry to develop electronic systems for mortgage registration and tracking, is moving its customer-relationship management operations to Nova Scotia with help from EDS.

As part of a pair of seven-year, $50 million contract renewals disclosed Tuesday, EDS will manage the bulk of MERS's CRM systems from its data center near Halifax. EDS had been managing the system from domestic locations. MERS will pay EDS for the services under a utility model, paying sliding fees depending on the number of transactions processed during a given period.

The farming out of entire departmental operations to a service provider--known as business-process outsourcing--is becoming increasingly popular among businesses looking to cut costs and concentrate on their main lines of business. Of late, more and more business-process outsourcing work is moving out of the States to near-shore and offshore locations as service providers and their customers look to take advantage of lower-cost labor markets. On Monday, market research firm Gartner released a survey indicating that offshore business-process outsourcing sales will grow 38%, from $1.3 billion in 2002 to $1.8 billion in 2003.

EDS also revealed Tuesday the renewal of a contract under which it will continue to provide MERS with application development and support from its data center in Adelaide, Australia.