IT firms start to get new contracts

[Indian]

Bangalore, Aug. 13: The end of the long drought of foreign contracts seems to be in sight for the Indian information technology industry with a clutch of companies bagging their first projects in months.

The good news is that this “trickle” of fresh outsourcing projects is not confined to the big names of the industry: it is evenly spread to the mid-sized and small companies, the section worst hit by the slowdown.

“In the last four to five weeks, we are not the only ones to get new projects. There are several other companies that have secured fresh projects, some small, some big. But the trickle seems to have just started,” Krishna Kumar, vice-chairman and president, Europe and Asia, MindTree Consulting, said.

MindTree Consulting has bagged six contracts in equal number of weeks.

There are several others companies that have reported the beginning of the end of the unusually long sales cycle. But for some strange reasons, many of these firms do not wish to be identified.

“Interestingly, many of those who had not contacted us for five months have called up in the last couple of months to say, ‘Shall we start talking.’ And, these talks have fructified into something concrete now,” says V Ramakrishna, MD, Eximsoft.

Many of these contracts are coming in Europe, some from the US and some from Indian companies. “They are small contracts, no doubt, but it helps us to prove our value add in this slowdown situation, so that we build on our relationship,” says a CEO of an IT solutions company.

Outsourcing is greater from Europe because, unlike the US, the trend is relatively new there. “As they are just realising the cost benefits of outsourcing to countries like India, (European) companies are going in for contracts (worth) less than $2 million. For us, it is a good start of a new relationship,” says one industry observer.

But observers are wary enough not to get too excited by the trickle of projects. “We are keeping our fingers crossed. Lets hope it leads to a turnaround.”

hope fairy ?