Indian IT firms struggle to keep pace with Accenture on large deals: report

Indian information technology (IT) services firms seem struggling to keep pace with Accenture, the world’s biggest IT services firm, which has widened its lead in sealing deals exceeding $100 million, Mint reported first on Wednesday.

Accenture, which maintains a September-August financial calendar, secured 62 large contracts–or deals with quarterly bookings of more than $100 million–in just the first half of the current fiscal, following 125 similar deals in the whole of fiscal 2024.

In comparison, India’s major IT firms, including Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), Infosys Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro Ltd, and Tech Mahindra Ltd, label contracts above $30 million as large deals.

Infosys, HCL, and Wipro collectively won 219 such contracts in the fiscal ending March 2024.

Between April and December 2024, Infosys and Wipro won 72 and 46 large deals, respectively, Mint‘s review of their financial statements showed.

While TCS and Tech Mahindra do not disclose specific figures, HCL Tech excludes renewals from its count of major contract wins.

To be sure, the scale of Accenture’s operations will also need to be factored in, apart from its financial calendar.

Accenture reported a revenue of $64.9 billion its latest fiscal year that ended last August, more than double the $29.1 billion generated by India’s largest IT services firm TCS in its fiscal year ending March 2024.

The combined revenue of India’s four largest IT services firms, which follow an April-March fiscal year, was recorded at $71.8 billion in their previous fiscal year.

This growing disparity has raised concerns among analysts about the declining ability of Indian IT firms to secure mega deals, the report said.

“Accenture has upped the game in large deals since FY24, where it bagged 125 deals compared to 106 in the previous year. In contrast, Indian Tier-1 IT has struggled with a drought in mega deals in FY25 after a healthy show in FY24,” Kotak analysts Kawaljeet Saluja, Sathishkumar S., and Vamshi Krishna said in a note dated 20 March.

Among Indian IT firms, TCS was the only major contender to win a mega deal in FY24, winning a 15-year contract worth $2.5 billion with British insurer Aviva.

Analysts attribute Accenture’s success to its consulting strength, which provides early access to major deals.

While Accenture won half, or $8.3 billion of its $16.7 billion revenue from consulting business in the quarter to February 2025, none of the Indian IT services firms provide revenue from the consulting business.