News: 'Top Indian cos ahead of MNCs'

(BL 04/08/2006) Bangalore - Top tier Indian IT services firms are a step ahead of their global counterparts on revenue and profit growth parameters according to Forrester Research. The latest report analysing the performance indicates that Tier I Indian vendors have continued to thrive while the global firms carry on to lose ground, especially in the application services market.

The report "IT Services Paradigm Shift Drives Continued Indian Provider Success," by Stephanie Moore, Vice- President, Forrester Research, refutes a pending slowdown among Indian providers and firmly believes the offshore trend to continue.

"Offshore providers have taught clients to expect transparency, efficiency, and accountability in service delivery. With a few exceptions, onshore service providers are struggling to adapt to this new dynamics. Despite the talk that Indian vendors would be supplanted by global majors, Tier I Indian vendors continue to take business from legacy service providers, and to demonstrate tremendous power in creating value."

While most legacy service providers worldwide like IBM, Accenture, Unisys and Keane among others have posted minimal to negative growth in the recent past, companies like Infosys, TCS and Wipro have all reported outstanding revenue and profit growth for their latest quarters, she added.

It further states that Indian firms will continue to grow - not just because they are a lower-cost option - because they have caused a `fundamental' and `structural' change in the service provider-client relationship.

Sudin Apte Senior Analyst and Country Head-India, Forrester said, "To move up the value chain, top Indian vendors are working successfully towards penetrating the global market for high-end services, and their approaches include - building domain competency, consultancy practices and customer pain specific solutions."