A new study has revealed that outsourcing's popularity for such things as online data recovery has not fallen massively since the beginning of the economic downturn, highlighting its importance.

Gartner stated that although the market has declined very slightly, the major change is in the number of deals which small businesses in IT are completing, whereas bigger companies are turning away from the market due to restricted financial assets.

Allie Young, an analyst and a vice-president at Gartner, stated that outsourcing still provides too many benefits for it to be completely overlooked as companies attempt to batten down the hatches.

"While economic forces can change priorities, the basic drivers of outsourcing remain intact," she emphasised.

"We have seen some softness in large deal signings, but no catastrophic decline."

Last week, Vanson Bourne found in research that 80 per cent of respondents to its questionnaire did not regret outsourcing their services, which may include such facilities as disaster recovery.

A recent survey for Connect found that one in ten companies has lost important data as a result of a backup failure. The company has now developed a unique online backup service for SMEs to ensure they can survive any disaster.