Contract likely to be awarded in March 2018.
As the competition in IT sector is getting tougher, Indian IT companies are looking for new opportunities to scale up their growth. But, when a huge opportunity arises, companies will have to compete to grab it. Indian technology market is witnessing such a situation as top players such as Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), Wipro, and Infosys compete for the largest outsourcing contract from Citigroup Inc.
Livemint reported that TCS, Wipro, and Infosys are battling it out to win the contract the amount of which is yet to be known. Last time, the contract worth $2.5 billion was won by TCS. Don Callahan, the head of operations and technology at Citigroup, had visited the companies in October as part of taking a final decision.
“Citi is a very attractive win, but also a brutally tough customer,” Ray Wang, founder and chief executive of technology advisory firm Constellation Research told Live Mint. “I believe all three will be aggressively competing for the deal.”
During his visit to Wipro’s Bengaluru facilities, Callahan met B.M. Bhanumurthy, the company’s chief operating officer (COO), and Rishad Premji, the chief strategy officer and son of chairman Azim Premji. Wipro used the opportunity to showcase its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform Holmes.
While Infosys used the opportunity to showcase the ability of its Artificial Intelligence-powered platform Mana, TCS led by CEO N. Chandrasekaran, showcased its new blockchain-related products to Citi Group executives.
Callahan’s visit to the top IT companies is the beginning of the process to decide the vendor, contract size, and tenure. The process is likely to complete within 12 to 18 months. Last time, it was a ten-year-long contract. Citi group will also invite bids from foreign companies before awarding the contract by March 2018. The contract will cover the back-office operations of Citi Group.
“Most of the discussions centered on automation and cognitive capabilities and the newer technologies we are building,” a top executive said.
According to experts, winning billion dollar contracts has become a herculean task for companies as clients are looking for cost cuts and insisting on innovative technology such as data analytics, and automation to run their business smoothly.