One leading industry analyst is drawing attention to the potential India has to meet the growing demand for outsourced energy programming and monitoring.

Commercial drives towards carbon neutrality - or at the very least improved energy efficiency - are rapidly gathering pace as governments, regulators and consumers respond to the growing threat of global warming.

And according to a recent op-ed New York Times piece by Thomas Friedman, India is in a prime position capitalise on that trend by offshoring its vast intellectual and technological capability to global firms.

He draws comparisons with the coming boom in green revamps and the rush to Y2K-proof the internal clocks of computing infrastructure ahead of the turn of the millennium - something Indian firms were hugely instrumental in orchestrating.

If promoted correctly, Mr Friedman argues that green offshoring will be seen as an opportunity for optimising energy technology, leading to a reduction in material costs, simplified logistics, lower electricity charges and shortened supply chains.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were 'guaranteed response times' and 'allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues'.