Experts gathered at the India Leadership Forum conference - organised by Nasscom - on engineering offshoring services here, said that the new trend among Indian companies involved in providing offshore engineering services was to shift from basic engineering CAD/CAM activities to offering complete end-to-end engineering solutions, including collaborating with third party solution providers for non-domain expertise.

"The key in the engineering offshoring business is the ability to provide engineering services that combine discrete engineering components together. International clients are now requesting and encouraging Indian engineering service providers to partner with other manufacturers in providing cheaper prototypes. If we show them that we can cut the equipment cost by almost half they are willing to pay for that service," said Mr Ketan Bakshi, founder and MD, Neilsoft Ltd, a specialist in engineering services and solutions.

The $125 billion engineering design services market is set to grow with India expected to emerge as the engineering hub of the world.

Nasscom has engaged Booz Allen Hamilton for a detailed study of the Indian engineering services space to chalk out an action plan for India to leverage its skills and get a slice of the business. However, while India has strong engineering domain knowledge in the construction and industrial machinery sector, it lacks expertise in the aerospace and automotive arena.

The key, said experts, was to leverage and build on areas of strength and experience.