Questions for Juniper

And what about their weaknesses?

Yes, they are still considered low on the value chain. One, most of their revenue comes from technical consulting, rather than strategy and creative. In fact, there are cases where a client hires a Scient for strategy, a Razorfish for creative and an Indian company for technical, though such cases are not very common.

Two, there is still a low-price image that they have, being from India. So many clients do not really talk to them for major projects. Many Indian companies like Netacross, Planetasia and MindTree compete with each other for many US projects, along with the e-biz practice groups of Infosys and Wipro.

Manpower Analysis

Noteworthy

Average bill rate for the Indian companies is $70 per hour, as compared to $145 per hour by the US companies. However, going a step further, the average bill rate of the Indian companies in the US is about $85 per hour. The utilisation of Indian companies, however, is a little higher.

Three, the strategy and creative manpower base in India is limited, unlike technical manpower. So, many of these companies have to hire from the US. That creates a problem, as not many good people are willing to work for Indian companies in the areas of strategy and creative, because of the low mind share that they have.

Four, the Indian operations of most companies are in bad shape. Projects are too few. And revenue is still lower, project sizes being too small. In fact, many Indian companies’ objectives behind building brands in India are actually to impress prospective employees. As our survey shows, the Indian revenue of the top five company’s account for just above ten percent of their total revenues.

Overall, it is thought, the large spate of consolidation that is underway in the US will affect Indian companies as well. Many of them, being smaller companies, will be softer targets for US companies, which are good in strategy and creative but want to scale up their technical expertise.

However, some companies will definitely make it to the top bracket and may even replace the big Indian names as the most premium services companies from India. As Arjun Malhotra, CEO of TechSpan and co-founder of HCL, puts it, "Tomorrow’s Big Five could be totally different from today’s Big Five."

Let us see whether any of the Indian pure-play e-biz consulting companies will make it to that coveted Top Five of tomorrow.

Shyamanuja Das