Infosys

Infosys Limited is one of the largest IT services companies globally, providing application development, infrastructure management, consulting, and business process services. Through FY2020 (April 2019–March 2020), Infosys derived a significant portion of revenue from time-and-materials (T&M) engagements — billing clients for consultant and engineer hours. While T&M provided predictable utilization-based revenue, it faced structural pressure: clients demanded cost predictability, billing rates were easily benchmarked against TCS, Wipro, and HCL, and the model incentivized headcount growth rather than efficiency. Total revenue in FY2020 was $12.78 billion. Large deal total contract value (TCV) was $9.0 billion in FY2020 — a solid baseline, but concentrated in renewals rather than net new business.

Under CEO Salil Parekh's "Navigate Your Next" strategy (announced January 2018, accelerated through FY2021–FY2024), Infosys systematically shifted toward outcome-based and large-deal engagements:

• Outcome-based pricing models: Developed commercial frameworks compensating Infosys based on predefined business outcomes — cost savings achieved, transactions processed, or SLA performance — rather than hours billed. This required assuming delivery risk but enabled higher margins when targets were exceeded and differentiated Infosys from pure T&M vendors.
• Large deal pursuit machine: Built a dedicated large-deal pursuit team and invested in solution architecture capabilities to compete for transformational engagements valued at $500 million+. Standardized deal constructs combining consulting, implementation, and multi-year managed services into single large-deal structures.
• Platform-based delivery: Invested in proprietary platforms — Infosys Cobalt (cloud transformation) and Infosys Topaz (AI-enabled services) — enabling repeatable delivery at scale. Platform-based delivery reduced marginal cost per outcome-based deal versus equivalent T&M, making outcome pricing commercially viable at large scale.
• Managed services conversion: Actively converted existing T&M clients to managed services contracts with defined scopes, KPIs, and outcome-based pricing, extending revenue visibility 3–5 years forward.