How Accenture leapt ahead of Indian IT firms with large deals

The world’s biggest IT services company, which follows a September-August financial calendar, bagged 62 large deals–deals with quarterly bookings of more than $100 million–in the first half of the fiscal year, following 125 such deals in fiscal 2024.

At Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Infosys Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro Ltd and Tech Mahindra Ltd, deals valued at more than $30 million are tagged large deals. Infosys, HCL and Wipro collectively secured 219 deals above $30 million in the year ended March 2024. In the nine months ended December 2024, Infosys and Wipro bagged 72 and 46 large deals, respectively, according to a Mint review of the company’s financials. While TCS and Tech Mahindra do not disclose the number of large deals, HCLTech’s large deal wins do not include renewals.

To be sure, Accenture reported $64.9 billion in revenue last year, making it more than twice the size of TCS, India’s largest IT services firm, which reported $29.1 billion revenue in FY24. Homegrown software service providers follow a April-March financial calendar. Collectively, the country’s four largest IT services companies made up $71.8 billion in revenue at the end of last fiscal.

Also read | Accenture becomes first IT services company to call out macro uncertainty

This has made one brokerage underline the falling ability of Indian IT in winning large deals.

“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,” said Kotak analysts Kawaljeet Saluja, Sathishkumar S., and Vamshi Krishna in a note dated 20 March.

TCS was the only large Indian IT service provider to win a mega deal last year, when it bagged a 15-year contract valued at $2.5 billion with British insurance group Aviva.

So what explains Accenture’s strong showing on the mega deals front?

A second expert pointed to the company’s strong consulting practice.

“Accenture gets into the large deal phenomena earlier than everyone else because of its consulting practice,” said Ashutosh Sharma, vice-president of Forrester Research, a Massachusetts-based tech advisory firm.

Also read | What Accenture’s hiring spree means for Indian IT industry

“Every large IT services vendor has built Gen AI capabilities. The only differentiator is that if you are focused on consulting, you can help a client assess the impact of Gen AI on their business and its broader impact. Consultation is the initial planning process and once this is done, the IT service provider gets access to a broader field of work the client needs which in turn leads to bigger ticket sizes,” said Sharma.

Accenture got half, or $8.3 billion of its $16.7 billion revenue from its consulting business in the quarter ended February 2025. To be sure, none of the homegrown IT services companies provide revenue from their consulting businesses.

Unlike Dublin-headquartered Accenture, Indian IT services providers never had a strong consulting practice. So what changed?

AI entered the picture.

A second expert said the service providers’ Gen AI practice is also a factor that clients consider when awarding large contracts.

Read this | Accenture ushers in holiday season with $1.2 billion in Gen AI orders

“Certainly, Gen AI is one of the influencing factors in how these companies award deals to IT service providers. Clients are investing in GenAI initiatives primarily for cost reduction and productivity improvements,” said Namratha Dharshan, chief business leader for ISG, a Connecticut-based tech advisory firm.

Dharshan added that Accenture has a toe in the door during client conversations surrounding Gen AI integration because of its consulting practice. She added that the country’s IT services firms would have to ramp up their consulting business and engage deeper with clients where they have a substantial presence.

“Going up the value chain will give them broader access to what clients can do,” said Dharshan.

While Accenture reported $5.6 billion in overall Gen AI bookings from inception to date, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) reported bookings and actual sales of $5 billion from the new technology. Mint had reported in September last year that a higher consulting exposure helped boost its Gen AI revenue.

IBM’s management reiterated this stance earlier this year.

Also read | Lessons for Indian IT services firms as Accenture, IBM lead GenAI charge

“We continue to gain momentum, with our GenAI book of business growing to over $5 billion inception to date, up by about $2 billion quarter over quarter. Approximately one-fifth of this book of business comes from software and the remaining four-fifths is Consulting,” said Arvind Krishna, chief executive of IBM, in a post-earnings interaction with analysts on 29 January.

The country’s IT services do not only face competition from each other when it comes to large deals, but also from mid-cap companies including Coforge Ltd.

Coforge Ltd struck a mega 13-year deal worth $1.56 billion with Sabre Corp., a Southlake, Texas-based travel technology company, earlier this month.

Even as foreign firms bag large deals on the back of a strong consulting process, there are alarm bells for IT outsourcers closer home.

This drought in large deals for the country’s largest IT outsourcers has come on the back of an uncertain macroeconomic environment where clients held back their tech spends. This dull spending outlook comes after sparks of recovery were seen for the IT services companies during the end of 2024.

Also read | TCS, Infosys fall far behind Accenture, global rivals in race for AI-related project bookings

Analysts attribute this gloom to an environment marked by tariffs, high lending rates, geopolitical tensions and uncertain visa rules, all of which would prompt clients to hold back their tech spending.

Still, ISG’s Sharma said this was a one-off and not a structural change.

“What usually happens is that large deals diminish in numbers when there is uncertainty in terms of demand or macroeconomic challenges. Now, when new technology like Gen AI comes, clients want to understand its impact before committing to the large deal.