IT cos now eye client's biz & people

NEW DELHI: After teaching the big boys of IT (like IBM, Accenture, EDS, Capgemini et al) a few good things on global delivery of IT services from India, the Indian IT majors are now targetting areas in which global biggies have traditionally done well.

That is, they are not only pitching for regular contracts but in some big contracts, they are taking over the assets of the client — the people and infrastructure — as MNCs do in large deals.

For instance, if the IT services company is bidding for a contract in infrastructure maintenance space, it will not only do the routine IT help-desk tasks, but also take over the relevant IT assets of the client and the people who were executing the task in-house.

The sweet spot for Indian majors in such deals is between $100m and $500m rather than the multi-billion dollar deals that MNCs target when they take over client’s infrastructure and people. With new deals getting broken down to smaller pieces, the Indian strategy in the long run will score over what MNCs have traditionally done.

Wipro has bagged two such deals recently. They are $100m deals each. One is with a UK-based utilities company and another with a US-based consumer products company. Wipro vice-president (global IT sourcing) Anand Shankaran said: “We see this business, where we take on client assets, as the growth engine for Wipro in the next three years.”

TPI India’s managing director Sid Pai said: “Indian IT players have already cornered 25% of the offshored applications, development and maintenance tasks. Chasing deals which involve taking over assets of the client is the next necessary step for them. The value for the client is not in transferring assets but in how the outsourcing partner can solve the business problem.”

HCL prefers to call it strategic co-sourcing (it collaborates with the client) and has signed up such deals with companies such as Autodesk, Teradyne and Dixons. On the other hand, TCS prefers to take over people not infrastructure.