Economic Times has a piece higlighting the inputs from Sudin Apte, Sr. Analyst & Country Head (India), Forrester Research. Below are some excerpts from the piece, i think the next phase of the IT Services industry is upoon us will need to see how things pan out, one is for the the top3 companies and of course there is the whole long tail of service providers close to 5000 of them, what is going to happen next?

Excerpts:

"Top Indian firms - Infosys, TCS, and Wipro are at a strategy cross road now. From a stage of undifferentiated, low-cost sales proposition three years ago, these firms have traversed to a point of inflection and have built their own strategies - in a manner very different from others. While Wipro is continuing core differentiation based on new ways to cut costs via efficiency boosters and deploying low cost labor, the bet Infosys is playing is to continue leverage India cost model, and at the same time, aim to play big game of global scale - head on with the likes of Accenture, on their own turf and rules. Whereas, vast talent pool and size, biggest global delivery footprint, and relatively larger client base are in favor of TCS. Their go-to-market includes building on this track record, and demonstrates capability mainly via technology centric offering - a sort of safe middle way, as compared to Infosys and Wipro."

He added that the clear differentiation and articulation based on the new strategies would make top three Indian vendors even more compelling in competitive situations.For example, business centric buyers can approach Infosys, technology and cost focused firms can shortlist Wipro, and technology-focused firms with global rollout requirements can explore TCS."

puts more pressure on the second tier players to focus and differentiate in order to solicit new business as well as survive the vendor consolidation.

Other Points:

• Wipro needs to evaluate other options for non-linear growth such as IP based solution framework and not dilute its focus in its strength areas of R&D services and infrastructure management.
• TCS needs to add more marketing flair stating clear articulation of its value proposition and benefits.
• And to succeed in this competition, Forrester recommends Infosys to build a strategy around its core competency of process superiority, efficiency and the offer of better IT and business value for US companies.

Source: 1

Prashanth Rai