Though the Indian IT major, Wipro, had won a $1.5 billion deal for ten years from the US-based Alight Solutions and TCS too bagging a few large deals, experts are of the opinion that large billion dollar deals still elude Indian IT services companies. Experts opined that Indian IT services companies may still keep winning a few billion dollar deals, but they are very minuscule compared to the deals earned by other large MNCs. Besides, Indian IT services companies are still not getting their hands on large deals in the digital space.
B.S. Murthy, CEO of the Bengaluru-based executive search firm, LeadershipCapital Consulting Limited, is of the view that a large proportion of the multi-billion dollar deals come from the defence and the government sector in the US, and they have restrictions on outsourcing their work. "These are the large deals which Indian IT services companies do not get. In this strategic fast-changing world, a large chunk of deals are going to the MNCs' consulting firms as they have a long standing relationship that have been developed over a time frame of 30-40 years. Moreover, large consultancies such as Accenture and IBM have a very strong consulting arm and thus have an edge over the Indian IT services companies. There would be news of one or two big deals by a few Indian companies, but a large chunk of the multi-billion dollar deals will continue to elude them,” explained Murthy.
Murthy also noted that the large deals that many of the Indian IT services companies have bagged call for some specific needs and they may not be necessarily end-to-end in nature, where, each and every requirement has been outsourced to the Indian IT services companies. “Large deals also come from bigger banks or financial corporations. They would have outsourced certain specific requirement to the Indian company, but at the same time they would have outsourced some other need to some other company,” remarked Murthy.
Another expert, Alok Shende of the Mumbai-based Ascentius Consulting, is of the opinion that this calendar year (2018), deals worth $50 billion are up for renewal and when renewed, they may not come at the same price and may be at reduced rates. “Though Indian IT services companies have bagged a couple of deals, a majority of the deals are still eluding them and it is too early to speculate that the big deals are back. However, the biggest cause of concern is that Indian IT services companies are not getting the large digital deals and they are usually going to MNCs such as IBM and Accenture. These MNCs have the deep business knowledge to bag such deals and they have a very strong consulting arm to grab such deals. But one should understand that digital deals are not large magnitude deals. If the MNCs continue to show their prowess, they will continue to bag more digital deals and Indian IT services players will not be able to compete,” said Shende.