As Accenture recently raised concerns on overall bookings decline and consulting segment in specific seeing strain, there is more optimism among the Indian consulting sector.
Even as salary hikes shrink and revenue growth slows in specific areas, Indian consulting firms note that Indian Boards continue to rely on specialists as they are hit by multiple shifts in technology, wars, tariff uncertainties and other macroeconomic factors all at the same time.
“While we are seeing a slight dip in clients’ willingness to invest, one in two clients remain open to making significant investments in technology, AI, and efficiency gains,” Deepankar Sanwalka, Senior Partner, Grant Thornton Bharat, said. We are also observing a growing emphasis on subject matter expertise and industry knowledge when it comes to hiring consultants, Sanwalka adds. In the current climate of political and macroeconomic uncertainty, strong client relationships will remain at the heart of everything we do, he notes.
Devroop Dhar, Co-Founder & MD at Primus Partners said that while engagements related to cost reduction and efficiency enhancement are growing, projects involving discretionary spends have slowed down considerably. “At an overall level, the consulting industry in India would see lower double-digit growth over the next few years. India is probably the only large market for consulting which is seeing growth, whereas globally consulting firms, especially in the developed economies, are facing challenges,” he said.
However, sources in the consulting field note that in the large and global consulting firms, hikes have gone to single -digits and promotion criteria too have become tighter with some Big 4s deciding that promotions will be doled out only once in three years. “Certain practices like tax and transactions are doing well, but in other advisory, projects are hard to come by and companies are also not willing to pay same kind of contract rates as earlier,” a director at a Big4 firm told businessline.
Aditya AM, Global CEO SPR Consultech, notes that nature of engagements has shifted from “optional to ROI-linked mandates.” He adds that tech consulting is growing exponentially and AI-led reengineering has become the driving force with data modernity and cloud cost optimisation.
Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, Partner at Catalincs and former CMD, Cognizant India says that consulting firms are largely winning cost-optimisation deals, and large transformation deals at the intersection of technology and business, has been slow. “The more progressive consulting firms that proactively shape the transformation agenda of companies and provide specific solutions are able to navigate it better,” he adds.
Government contracts
Another area where Indian consulting firms are standing out from the West is on the government contracts. While DOGE and overall spending cuts has impacted Federal contracts for global consulting firms, India’s Viksit Bharat goals and the country’s economic growth is keeping government projects robust for Indian firms.
The recent focus of the Indian government in supporting the growth of Indian origin firms would enable at least 4-5 firms to cross a billion dollar in valuation within the next ten years, Dhar estimates.