Infy, Wipro set up units to tap Indian, foreign govt mkt

BANGALORE: Two of the top three Indian tech firms—Infosys and Wipro—are setting up dedicated practices for serving government customers locally and across the globe, as they seek to address over $100-billion market for government IT outsourcing
and compete more effectively with local rival TCS, apart from challenging IBM, EDS and others in their home markets.

Both Infosys and Wipro have started hiring consultants and experts from government organisations apart from investing more in marketing efforts in order to chase government outsourcing opportunities better. According to a recent Nasscom research, governments in developed countries spent nearly $160 billion on technology services last year, which is just next to financial services and manufacturing customers.

A focused solution practice will involve hiring consultants from government organisations , putting together a large team of domain experts in the markets of India, US, UK, Canada and Australia, and develop a new revenue opportunity at par with other established verticals such as retail, telecom and banking
and financial services industry. “We have taken a decision to start government practice in India and other markets of the UK, Australia, Canada and the US,” said S Gopalakrishnan, chief executive of Infosys Technologies .

“We are building expertise by hiring consultants with relevant backgrounds, some from government organisations-we want to make this a multi billion opportunity for us in next few years,” he said. Rival Wipro, which already serves many Indian customers including several government organisations is also fleshing out a much more serious initiative for growing its revenues from this segment globally.