It may not be Ross Perot's“giant sucking sound” you're hearing, but according to businessadvisory firm the Hackett Group, as many as 750,000 finance,treasury, IT and other business services jobs could be offshoredbetween now and 2016, continuing a trend that has already seenclose to 1.5 million such jobs moved offshore by companies in theU.S. and Europe.

Hackett, which surveyed some 4,700 U.S. and European companieswith more than $1 billion in revenue, claims companies thatimplement what it refers to as a global business services operatingmodel, which includes shifting jobs to low-wage areas like India orEastern Europe where appropriate, can achieve cost savings of about29%.

“For a typical Global 1000 company with $28.8 billion inrevenue, these reductions amount to $314 million in annualsavings,” according to the Hackett Group report.