Persistent bets on Nagarro to hit $5 bn yearly revenue by ‘31

Deal is expected to propel the company up two spots to India’s seventh-largest IT services firm

- Jas Bardia

Persistent Systems Ltd is looking to anchor its long-standing European ambitions and hit a $5 billion revenue target by March 2031 through its largest-ever acquisition, German digital engineering firm Nagarro.

The deal is expected to propel the company up two spots to become India’s seventh-largest IT services firm, boasting a combined revenue of about $2.9 billion.

During an analyst call on Sunday, the company’s management outlined the strategic rationale behind the mega-deal and addressed analysts’ queries regarding debt repayment.

“They (Nagarro) are a key implementation partner for SAP, whereas our ERP (enterprise resource planning) progress is not necessarily at scale, so these kinds of additions are fairly important to us,” Sandeep Kalra, chief executive of Persistent Systems, said during the call.

He added that Nagarro’s product engineering capabilities for SAP and its partnership with OpenAI are key additions to Persistent’s portfolio. IT services firms do not typically disclose specific revenues generated from software embedding or individual AI partnerships. Kalra also noted that Nagarro is among a select group of accredited OpenAI resellers and has a specialised engineering team dedicated to deploying its technologies.