Engineering Services Outsourcing (ESO) is set to become the next big opportunity for India's outsourcing services industry, says a recent report from CRISIL.

Outsourcing of engineering services would largely involve operations linked to the pre-manufacturing stage like designing, prototyping, besides analysing data points for process improvement, it said.

"The country's strength in the engineering domain, adaptability to new emerging opportunities and the advantage of vast skilled talent pool considered on par with other countries, augur well for engineering services," CRISIL Research's Head Manoj Mohta said in a statement.

Mohta has predicted that engineering services would grow at a compounded rate of 26 per cent and revenues would cross USD 7.5 billion by 2012-13, which would also mean a rise in India's share of global offshore engineering to 25 per cent from the current levels of around 18-19 per cent.

With problems related to global slowdown hitting the Indian IT and ITeS segments, the report suggests that the country needs to move towards value-added segments like knowledge-driven services and engineering offshoring and analytics in order to get back the high billing rates and protected margins, the report said.