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Shamik Paul

Bangalore, May 15 They came, they saw and they bought. This is what people might be saying once the Indian IT honchos are done with their shopping in Europe this summer.

With most Indian IT service providers looking to expand operations in Europe, the next couple of quarters would see a flurry of mergers and acquisitions.

Mr Navi Radjou, Vice-President, Forrester Research Inc, said getting customers in the conservative European market is the principal driver behind these acquisitions. They would mostly buy industry-specific boutique consulting firms, Mr Radjou said. Most of them would happen in the UK, France and the Netherlands.

He said the Indian vendors would choose to buy small IT companies in countries where they can get deals quickly. They might also choose specific countries for specific verticals. For example, they might choose the UK for financial services and Germany for manufacturing, he added.

Mr Radjou said the acquisitions would generally be small. The Indian vendors would buy small companies that are easy to digest. They would target companies that might be doing small deals but have strong customer relationships.

They would buy the companies and quickly integrate them. The biggest asset would be client relationship, he added. He said the Indian IT service providers would probably retain employees of the acquired company. But Europe would not make up for the US market, which would see flat growth in both pricing as well as in the number of deals.

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