Small IT companies snatch deals from tech giants

CHENNAI: It's a David and Goliath tale. Smaller niche companies are walking away with deals that would have traditionally been bagged by IT majors like Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL. Greater domain expertise, mobile first solutions and integrated services with cost-effective options have worked in the small companies' favour.

Coimbatore-based NDOT, an 8-year-old mobile app development company , bagged deals from the Madhya Pradesh police department in 2014 to develop the app Aaha, which is used for workforce management and communication. “It's more like a WhatsApp for communication among employees. Close to 1 lakh police personnel use the app for internal communication. A version for the general public to interact with police will also soon be rolled out,” said Nandakumar Somasundaram, CEO, NDOT.


The company sealed the close-to-a-million-dollar deal amid competition from over 5 Indian IT firms. He adds that their mobile-first approach to tech solutions works better than web-based solutions offered by the established companies. The company growing at a CAGR of over 100%, has bagged 10 deals in the teeth of stiff competition in sectors like manufacturing, logistics, and e-governance. With specialized knowledge in the pharma sector, Chennai-based Zifo RnD solutions has secured projects from top global pharma companies.

The company had an edge over the biggies as they not only offer IT solutions, but have domain expertise that makes them double up as consultants. Raj Prakash G, CEO, Zifo sa id that while a global pharma company was initially sceptic, Zifo's ability to speak both languages of the scientist and systems convinced them into giving them a long-term renewable deal worth $3 million for three years. “One of the key differences they noticed was that 90% of our team had a life sciences background. They were able to visualize a blend of scientific knowledge, technical skills and regulatory knowhow in our team,” he added. Another customer, PCG Clinical Services and PCG solutions, who preferred Zifo over generalist IT majors felt that specialized, niche services have made them clinch the deal.

“Rather than performing like an order-taking, specification-driven generalist, Zifo's specialist team has been consultative with excellent scientific and clinical expertise. They have helped us accelerate our clinical projects and reduce cycle time,” said Henrik Blombergsson, Co-founder and Chairman of PCG Clinical Services and PCG Solutions.

In the data analytics space, Bengaluru-based Formcept is making waves with its unified data analysis platform -that has developed Mecbot, a digital software robot that performs data analysis at a lower cost.


“In a deal the company won with a company in the BFSI sector with 3-5 IT majors competing, we clinched the offer as we offered more value for the same cost, cutting down on integration and engineering expenditure,” said Suresh Srinivasan, co-founder, Formcept. Integrating structured and unstructured data, which would otherwise take several applications to perform, was done by a single bot. “We were able to finish the trial run and provide end-to-end solutions within three weeks, while the other contenders couldn't,” he said.