nextSource, Inc. Reports Dramatic Increases for India IT Consultant Bill Rates

Indian IT consulting firms were charged an average of 35 percent more in 2004 and a subsequent 12 percent more in 2005

NEW YORK, April 18, 2005 — nextSource Inc., a leading provider of human capital and services spend management solutions, is reporting an overall 47 percent increase in bill rates being charged by Indian IT consulting firms since 2004. This increase, which breaks down to 35 percent in 2004 and 12 percent in 2005, has been documented by The PeopleTicker™, nextSource's patent pending rate and compensation tool which monitors market hourly and salary compensation in real-time.

"This increase is most likely due to the increase in contracts from outsourced projects and the associated recruitment of additional qualified workers to accomplish the increased workload", said Joseph Musacchio, the president and CEO of nextSource.

Despite the spike in the billing rates, the compensation of the Indian consultants has risen by less than half of the total increase, equaling to approximately 14 percent.

In comparison, The PeopleTicker indicates that the bill rates for IT professionals in the U.S. have increased an average of seven percent. The salaries and consultant rates for IT professionals in the United States have risen five to six percent during this two year time span, while suppliers' markup and service charges have increased by an average of only one to two percent.

These gains in the U.S. are attributed to a rise in the pay going to the consultant, as well as the cost of candidate recruitment. However, rate increases are not uniform across all experience levels of a given skill set. Senior level and above workers are responsible for the upward trending while entry level and mid level workers have remained unchanged or decreased slightly.

"This information, from our PeopleTicker, is increasingly valuable to procurement organizations," Joseph Musacchio, the president and CEO of next Source. "Being knowledgeable of these market conditions enable procurement and IT executives to decide where, when and with whom they should do a project. For instance, money can be saved at lower level positions to free up budgets for higher end, mission critical workers."

Veritude, a staffing service and workforce consulting company and wholly owned subsidiary of Fidelity Investments, uses the PeopleTicker to manage its workforce in both the US and India.

"We have been using The PeopleTicker™ for two years now and have found the accuracy astonishing," says Andrew Weissman, Veritude's senior vice president of product development and strategy. "The combination of our proprietary technology, with nextSources' PeopleTicker has kept us at the forefront of the staffing industry when establishing new hire rates/salaries as well as staying ahead of retention issues whether it's in the Untied States or India. It has proven to be an integral part of delivering an efficient, invaluable workforce management solution."

About nextSource

nextSource, Inc. is a leader in the development and implementation of workforce management solutions that address the enterprise-wide challenges associated with the sourcing and management of contingent labor, direct employee hires and deliverable-based project work. nextSource's solutions combine the latest technologies and the industry's best practices, allowing clients to streamline processes, identify and manage their spend, and mitigate risk. The PeopleTicker™, nextSource's most recent innovation, is the industry's only real-time hourly rate and salary benchmarking tool which enables users to monitor market fluctuations for their full-time and contingent workforces to determine current market rates and salary data specific to industry, geographic region, skill-set, and experience level. John Sculley, former CEO of Apple Computer and PepsiCo, Inc., is the chairman of the nextSource Advisory Board. For more information, visit http://www.nextsource.com.