New York and New Delhi March 2, 2009

Global Services and neoIT have identified the 100 best IT and BPO service providers from 19 countries in its fifth annual survey findings announced last week. The GS100 list will help Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and business heads of major outsourcers identify reliable, innovative and tech savvy partners. The editors of Global Services along with analysts from premier services globalization advisory firm, neoIT, identified the top 100 service providers and leaders across 11 categories.

The list includes 44 U.S.A. and 31 India headquartered companies. “The Global Services 100 is like an index of globalization in the services industry. This year’s list comprises companies headquartered in 19 countries, with customer locations in over 30 countries, and service delivery locations in 31 countries. A company that figures in this list bears testimony to the fact that it can serve global customers from multiple locations”, says Ed Nair, Editor, Global Services. 

Functionally, these providers covered a range of services across IT and BPO, including IT Application Services, Infrastructure, Finance and Accounting Outsourcing (FAO), Human Resources Outsourcing (HRO) and Contact Centers. 

The toppers from each of the 11 categories included four companies from the U.S.A, three from India and one company each from Russia, China and Mexico. They included India’s Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, and Genpact; America’s Convergys, Sitel, ACS, and Symphony Services; Russia’s Luxoft; Mexico’s Neoris; and China’s Neusoft.

“The Global Services 100 Study, in its 5th year, has become the industry standard for identifying leading companies from around the world who are making an impact in the field of global services.  We congratulate this year’s field, especially the organizations that have demonstrated functional and geographic excellence and were selected to the category specific ‘Top 10 Lists’,” says Eugene Kublanov, CEO, neoIT. 

In terms of customer locations, of all the companies in the Global Services 100 survey, the U.S. definitely leads with 95 percent of the companies having a U.S. customer, closely followed by Western Europe where 84 percent of the companies have customers. The narrow gap between the U.S. and Western Europe signifies the geo-led diversification strategy of companies and the opening up of Western Europe to global sourcing. An interesting find here is that India and China with 52 and 27 percent respectively, points toward the potential and uptake for IT services and BPO in domestic markets, again borne out of the need to diversify away from locations like the U.S. and Europe.

More than two-thirds of the service providers cited currency fluctuations as their major area of concern during the year. Understandably, this is so because the dollar had appreciated against most other currencies during the year, which adversely affected the cost structure of many non-U.S. companies. Currency fluctuations have been severe enough to adversely affect the financial statements of companies. For instance, Infosys, one of the IT and BPO services leaders, posted a forex loss of $41 million due to hedging at marked-to-market value rate when the rupee depreciated to Rs 48.71 against the US dollar. Similarly, TCS, which reported 18 percent decrease in net income, attributes the loss to $51.4 million forex loss.

Low valuations have driven the M&A trend in the industry during the year 2008. Large acquisitions like the $505 million TCS-Citi deal (in Oct. '08), the $127 million Wipro-CTS deal (in Dec. '08), the $800 million HCL-Axon acquisition deal (in Sept. '08), the $400 million Capgemini-Getronics deal, and finally, the HP-EDS merger happened in H2 '08 across the globe. 

Note to Editors: 

The full 2009 GS100 List is available here.
The Category List is available here. 
Please refer to Namita Goel, Asst. Editor, Global Services at namitag@cybermedia.co .in for more details.

About the Methodology
The top 100 list and the ranks in the 11 categories are based on a scientific methodology, starting with the responses being clubbed under four broad buckets: Size (revenue, employee strength, geographies covered, etc.), customers (customer base, testimonials and references, average contract size, etc.), skills (depth and breadth of offerings, delivery capability, quality initiatives, verticals covered, etc.) and others (attrition, training, etc.).

A weighted scoring scheme was used to rate each question. For the category lists, weights were assigned to address specific strengths and capabilities. 

The scoring scheme was designed by a panel from Global Services’ and neoIT’s practice experts. Care was taken to ensure that all service providers (global, niche or regional) were given a level playing field. For a revenue-based question, for example, if the scoring scheme gave weightage to higher revenue, small or niche companies pared this disadvantage by scoring high on better growth rates. 

About Global Services
Global Services, a media platform by CyberMedia, facilitates the global service delivery for customers and service providers of IT and business-process outsourcing services, and provides cost-effective marketing solutions to the service providers in this industry. A multishore team spanning the U.S.A. and India drives the Global Services brand. The Global Services brand is an integrated media platform that includes the website globalservicesmedia.com and global seminars. 

About CyberMedia 
CyberMedia, now in its 25th year, is South Asia's first and largest specialty media house, with fifteen publications (including Dataquest, DQ Channels and DQ Week, PCQuest, Voice&Data, Global Services and DARE) in the infotech, telecom, consumer electronics, biotech and entrepreneurship areas, and is a media value chain including Internet (www.ciol.com), events and television. The group's media services include market research (IDC India), job board (CyberMedia Dice), content management, multimedia, and media education.  

CyberMedia also publishes BioSpectrum Asia from Singapore and Global Services from the U.S.A., the first Indian magazine titles to be published from outside the country for a global audience. 

About neoIT
neoIT is a management consulting firm that helps leading corporations improve and grow their business by capitalizing on services globalizationSM. Through a blend of strategic advisory services and hands-on execution support, neoIT provides advice and management expertise on the globalization of Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services.

For more information, please contact:
At Global Services
Ed Nair
1-678-665-6005 (ET) 
ed@cybermedia.co.in