<p><strong style="font-weight: bold;">Indian IT companies </strong>are tweaking <strong style="font-weight: bold;">incentives </strong>as mining existing clients become key to boosting <strong>revenue </strong>growth. </p>
<p>While some, like <strong>Mphasis</strong>, are promising <strong>Teslas </strong>to their top sales staff, others, such as Infosys <strong>NSE 0.78%</strong> and <strong>Accenture</strong>, are looking at increasing incentives to encourage their delivery teams make sales as well. </p>
<p>IT companies are facing the prospect of slowing growth as clients ask for more automation and demand massive price cuts in their traditional outsourcing contracts, while staving off competition. </p>
<p>Indian firms still earn more than two thirds of their revenue from traditional outsourcing contracts that are either stagnant or are contracting. As a result, companies are getting creative in how they look at boosting growth. </p>
<p>“We have a focused programme with strategic customers, where you (an <strong>Mphasis </strong>executive account lead) are working to increase your share of wallet with them,” <strong>Mphasis CEO Nitin Rakesh</strong> said n a recent interview. “Whoever grows the account fastest will get to spend two days with someone from the executive team and then they are given a <strong>Tesla</strong>. It is based on whoever grows fastest.” </p>
<p>While fancy cars have long been a perk for <strong>top sales</strong> people, 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 <strong>CEO Salil Parekh</strong>. </p>
<p>“We are rolling out an incentive programme for our delivery teams,” Parekh said in a recent interview. “This is going to be quite broad-based, we think a large number of our delivery teams can benefit from it. There will be monetary incentives as well, which will be quite substantial. It is along the lines of a <strong>sales commission</strong> — how sales people are paid a commission, we also want delivery people to think like that.” </p>
<p><strong>Accenture </strong>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, <strong style="font-weight: bold;">Accenture Technology Services</strong>, said in July. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong style="font-weight: bold;">INCENTIVES TO DRIVE AUTOMATION</strong></p>
<p><strong>Sekhar </strong>had added that the company was originating deals worth millions of dollars from its innovation hub in <strong>Bengaluru </strong>and was focusing on innovation-led sales. </p>
<p><strong>IT companies </strong>are also looking at specifically incentivising sales people to drive automation, even if it cannibalises current revenue. </p>
<p>“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,” <strong>Tata Consultancy Services CEO Rajesh Gopinathan</strong> said last month. <strong>Accenture </strong>has similarly placed automation leads in its projects. Analysts said the nature of incentives has changed given the evolution of digital deals and the growth of automation. </p>
<p>“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. “We are hearing that companies are reworking their incentive programmes, especially with there being fewer large deals in the market.” </p>
<p>It’s not just IT companies looking at incentivising their sales force with top-end cars. Business process management company <strong>WNS </strong>gives its top sales executives Porsches every year, Swaminathan R, chief people officer at the company, said in a post on social media site <strong style="font-weight: bold;">LinkedIn</strong>. </p>