Software vendor Staffware plc hopes to capitalize on the offshore-outsourcing trend, but not in the way you might think. It's setting up a base in Mumbai, India, to market and sell its business-process management tools to IT services vendors in that country.

"Increasingly, [these companies] need tools that allow them to offer higher-value services to their offshore customers," says Chris Phillips, chief marketing officer at Staffware. Business-process management software helps companies automatically design, implement, and connect business processes such as invoicing and accounting.

Phillips says Staffware also expects strong sales to user companies in India, particularly in the country's financial-services market. "Indian businesses are facing the same pressure to operate as efficiently as possible as their U.S. and European counterparts are," he says. Staffware recently won a contract to provide business-process management software to HDFC Bank Ltd. in Mumbai.

Research firm Gartner says India's share of the business-process outsourcing market is set for big growth. Total sales by Indian vendors will grow to $1.2 billion this year from $1 billion a year ago, and could reach $13.8 billion by 2007, according to Gartner.

Phillips wouldn't say how much Staffware is investing in India and wouldn't confirm a report in an Indian newspaper that said the company would spend $2 million over the next two years in the country. Staffware's Mumbai office will be open in about two weeks, he says. Staffware will work with a number of local service providers, including Tata Infotech, to sell and market its software in India.