IT firms hunt deals instead of waiting for client tenders

IT service providers said they are bagging deals through client mining efforts underway

- Jas Bardia

The country's largest information technology (IT) services companies are actively hunting for deals rather than waiting for clients to float tenders, as uncertain macroeconomic conditions and a need to outperform competition are prompting IT outsourcers to become deal hunters.

While IT service providers, including Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. and Zensar Technologies Ltd, said they are bagging deals through such client mining efforts, peers Birlasoft Ltd and Firstsource Solutions Ltd are focusing on creating large deals.

"See, there are two types of large deals. One, where things are coming as RFPs (request for proposals) in the market. And the second is where you have to create large deals. So the pipeline for where we are trying to proactively create large deals is very good. The pipeline for RFPs where anyway the probability of selling is very low, that is fairly muted, and that has been muted for us for quite some time," said Manish Tandon, chief executive of Zensar Technologies, during the company's post-earnings conference on 25 April.

Zensar ended last fiscal with $624.5 million in revenue, up 5.4% on a yearly basis.