Indian IT companies incentivising sales with top-end cars

BENGALURU: Indian IT companies are in the prospect of slowing growth as the clients ask for more automation and demand massive price cuts in their traditional outsourcing contracts, while staving off competition.

Due to this, the companies are getting creative in how they look at boosting growth. “We have a focused programme with strategic customers, where you (an Mphasis executive account lead) are working to increase your share of wallet with them,” Mphasis CEO Nitin Rakesh told ET in a recent interview.

While fancy cars have been admired and the sales incentives to delivery staff to boost growth are aimed at retaining customers and looking at opportunities in newer business areas such as digital and cloud. Infosys has launched an incentive scheme tied to its internal innovation programme to help increase sales, according to CEO Salil Parekh.

Accenture too has embedded innovation leads in projects to drive revenue growth from the delivery end. “We had already included innovation as a metric on which it rewards its senior executives and most contracts come with innovation clauses. We have also embedded innovation leads in our projects to drive that aspect of the business,” Mohan Sekhar, senior MD, Accenture Technology Services, told ET in July.

Sekhar had added that the company was originating deals worth millions of dollars from its innovation hub in Bengaluru and was focusing on innovation-led sales.

“The entire sales team has been fully incentivised and coached so that wherever they see an opportunity for automation, they should lead with automation as the solution,” Tata Consultancy Services CEO Rajesh Gopinathan said last month.

Analysts said the nature of incentives has changed given the evolution of digital deals and the growth of automation. “The delivery units spend most of their time with the client--they would have a better understanding of how the client’s business is progressing and could leverage an innovation they are working on to drive an expanded contract,” said an analyst at a Mumbai-based brokerage.