In March'04 a mega outsourcing deal announcement was made out of India, Bharati the largest private sector telecommunication company in India, inked a deal with IBM for total IT transformational outsourcing.

Recently another such deal happened for IBM, "10-year deal to provide a range of technology services to Idea Cellular, a major provider of mobile telephony services in India."

Under the agreement, worth up to $800 million, IBM will provide Idea Cellular with new business analytics software, assistance with the rollout of new services to subscribers, and comprehensive customer relationship management services.

IBM will also help Idea Cellular modernize a number of key business processes, including billing, fraud management, and credit collection, while assuming management of the company's computing infrastructure.

IBM during the Bharati deal had around 10000 people in India, now during the IDEA deal have 50000 people in India.

When i think about this two questions pop up:

1. Why is it not an Indian IT Services Players?

2. Are Indian IT Services firms ready for "IT Transformational Deals" at a enterprise wide scale?

On this topic, the IBM site has the key Bharati Executives talking about the deal, Below are some excerpts:

JM = Dr.Jai Menon-Corporate Director of IT and Technology and CIO
SM = Sunil B.Mittal-Chairman and Group Managing Director
AG = Akhil Gupta-JMD

JM: That leads to us really requiring a partner who has a very grand vision on where communications and computing is headed, and who can help us implement the right kind of technologies for the right kind of services to our customers.
JM: So we needed somebody who came to us not just for cost reduction or giving us a component technology, but somebody who understood our business, understood what the business processes could change into, and come along with us and be very flexible and adaptive in terms of what needs to be delivered to take us to where we need to go to.
AG: I think the only big vendor or partner I could look for all across, including with Widpro and Infosys (I have a great respect for them) was IBM.
SM: And we felt that the hunger that IBM displayed, and the passion with which they came into this bidding process, gave me the comfort that they would be able to do this job.
SM: Transformational outsourcing, for me, equals to changing of religion of this industry. In fact, after our announcement with IBM, I saw jaws dropping around the world.
SM: People have been shocked. How can you give your heart of the business away? Our neck is on the line, there is no question. The world is watching us.
AG: Because there was some criticism that, while the world is looking for outsourcing to India, we have done the opposite. And our answer to that was, first, we don't treat IBM as a pure U.S. company. IBM, with 10,000 plus people in India, is as much as an Indian company. After all, when they are expanding in India, they are employing Indians. Two, we have gone for what meets the necessity of the needs of our company. And if that is IBM, so be it.
JM: For us to respond to this very, very demanding marketplace, we need a technology partner who can provide to us technology in an on demand manner. On demand, simply meaning, that we don't have to do a whole lot of upfront payments and investments to make it happen.
AG: On demand to me means that whatever I need for the end result, I can simply demand. Now, that obviously doesn't mean that you don't plan ahead and they don't consult each other. But what I don't need is distinct pieces. I want it as a package so that I can apply that in conjunction with whatever elements are there and put it for the service of my customer. That is to me, on demand.
SM: This on demand model takes care...into account all the shifts in technologies. And the fact is, we are a telecom company. We are not technologists. We buy technology and serve the customers.
AG: One of the significant features of this contract with IBM is that the payments are linked as a percentage of revenue.

(highlighting mine)

Source: 1, 2

Prashanth Rai