Indian IT firms top Europe survey

Indian information technology service providers Cognizant, TCS and Infosys have topped the latest ranking of service providers in Europe, in a survey done by EquaTerra, an IT advisory service provider.

In the Performance and Satisfaction study by EquaTerra for 2009-10, Cognizant has captured the first position, with a 79 per cent score. TCS and Infosys have taken the third and fourth position, with 75 per cent and 74 per cent scores, respectively.

The second place was taken by US company Compuctacenter, with 78 per cent.

The study evaluates client satisfaction by surveying over 2,000 client relationships from 750 top IT spending organisations across Europe, covering 12 countries.

The ranking covers 25 IT service providers in all. Cognizant topped the rankings in seven of the eight parameters the study focused on.

These include Relationship Management (actively managing the relationship at the operational and strategic levels), Innovation (actively identifying innovation opportunities), Transition (completing the transition successfully on time and budget and with the required functionality), Quality (meeting the service levels as set out in the Service Level Agreement), Price (charging for services in line with current market price) and Risk (shouldering reasonable commercial risk and making necessary investments to reduce it).

Jef Loos, director, EquaTerra, said this ranking, based on two-thirds of all IT deals in Europe, gives a near-accurate evaluation of client satisfaction.

"We choose the clients and do cross-reference where the same client is serviced by more than one IT service provider," Loos said.

He further said, "Cognizant had not one dissatisfied client, which makes the company the best performer among the top 25 IT outsourcing service providers that we evaluated."

Apart from Cognizant, TCS and Infosys, the other major IT companies to appear in the top 25 list are Wipro (15), Mahindra Satyam (17) and HCL (18).

Francisco D'Souza, President and CEO, Cognizant, said,"Over the years, we have made significant investments in bringing our industry-leading, client-focused processes to Europe.

"Our high-touch relationship model, deep domain expertise and consulting skills, our unique reinvestment philosophy, and our ability to build strong multicultural teams around the globe have helped our customers navigate structural changes in the economy and their businesses, enabling them to stay efficient, effective and innovative."