Washington, Aug 4 - US companies are increasingly turning to offshoring their functions to achieve cost savings with small companies looking for new talent clusters beyond India, China and Eastern Europe, according to a new survey.

The number of US companies with a corporate offshoring strategy in place more than doubled from 2005 to 2008, according to the fifth annual report on offshoring trends, published by Duke University in collaboration with the Conference Board, a nonprofit business research organisation Monday.

Speed to market and the domestic shortage of science and engineering talent are two key drivers for offshoring projects, says the annual survey noting very few of these companies plan to relocate activities back to the US.

Last year, more than 50 percent of companies had a corporate offshoring strategy in place, up from 22 percent in 2005. Sixty percent of companies currently offshoring say they have aggressive plans to expand existing activities.

The report also confirms that globalisation of innovation, defined as engineering, research and development (R&D), R&D support functions, product design, and software development, is accelerating.

Small and midsized companies are increasingly sourcing innovation offshore, it said noting many of these companies find it difficult to compete for highly qualified talent domestically.

Small companies are also more adept at identifying and accessing new geographical talent clusters like Brazil, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Russia and other locations outside of China, India and Eastern Europe.