Top Indian software companies including Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Infosys and HCL Technologies are chasing two mega global software outsourcing projects worth $10 billion. The outsourcing deal, for which a global request for information has been floated, will be finalised within the next two to three quarters.
The projects, billed as one of the largest global IT outsourcing deal, is being chased by the Indian companies in competition with global majors like IBM Globalservices and EDS amongst others. The projects are a $6 billion IT outsourcing project by the German army and a $4 billion project by Procter and Gamble.
Though none of the companies in the fray is likely to win the complete project, according to sources, companies with proven capabilities can win substantial parts of it.
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"In projects of this size, no company will win the complete projects. The projects are normally given out as projects to multiple companies," said Sunil Mehta, vice president, Nasscom.
Another possibility that the Indian companies, according to analyst, could look at are to bid for the project as a consortium. Analysts point out that consortium bidding will help the group to win substantially large part of the project.
"If the companies form a consortium and bid for the project, they stand a better chance to win substantial part of it. This is what some of the global companies practice in case of such a major project," said an analyst with the Gartner Group.
Another option that the Indian companies can look at is to subcontract parts of the projects from the big companies who win a substantial part of this. This is a normal practice some of the Indian companies follow, as many of them do not have marketing muscle to bid for major global projects.
"For example small companies do at times subcontract part of a big project that the big companies win. But I do not think that the big companies will be keen for such an arrangement, as they have built a brand and have proven their capabilities," said Mehta.
But news seems to be bad for the small and medium software services companies as the large deals do normally go to the 10 Indian companies. "The main reason for this is because the large companies are comfortable working with established brands like TCS, Infosys and Wipro. More over the smaller companies do not have bandwidth to handle the large projects that the big companies out source," he pointed out.