Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) is the Scottish Government's economic and community development agency for the north and west of Scotland. Employing over 3,000 FTEs, the Global Business Services industry is one of the region’s most important sectors and has enjoyed steady growth in the Highlands and Islands since the early 1990s. The continued and growing presence of major multinational organisations is testament to the region’s successful track record in delivering such services, especially those relating to telecommunications and IT/computing. Businesses operating in the region excel particularly well in critical business performance areas such as customer satisfaction, call resolution, staff retention and low absenteeism. In the past few years, the growing trend for delivering outsourcing activity in the Highlands and Islands has accelerated rapidly, and now a distinct IT outsourcing cluster is emerging, offering a wide range of services from first and second line call handling, to software innovation and development.