AI Alliances Deepen, Efficiency Deals Dominate — and Capgemini Shakes Up IT/BPO with WNS Buy
IT Services Industry Highlights (June 29 – July 6, 2025)
The Industry Pulse: 3 Takeaways for the Week
Generative AI partnerships proliferate: Leading providers are forging new alliances around generative AI capabilities - from HCLTech teaming with OpenAI to Tech Mahindra launching an Agentic AI hub.
Efficiency and modernization lead client deals: Many engagements this week were about expanding existing partnerships to boost efficiency and modernize IT estates. Cognizant, HCLTech, and Kyndryl all inked multi-year extensions with major clients (Aker Solutions, Equinor, Asendia) centered on cloud migration, automation and AI-driven improvements to deliver faster ROI.
Talent Retention at mid and senior levels: Indian IT firms are aggressively fortifying talent retention strategies to combat poaching by GCCs and rivals, focusing on global exposure, internal mobility, and culture-driven engagement over mere compensation.
As I was finalizing the newsletter for the week, Capgemini announced an agreement to acquire WNS for $76.5 per share in cash, totalling $3.3 billion (excluding net debt) and here’s my two cents on it.
Capgemini’s WNS Acquisition
Why Capgemini Acquired WNS?
Capgemini aiming to create a ‘global leader’ in Intelligent Operations by combining its technology and consulting prowess with WNS’s domain-focused business process services. WNS brings deep process expertise across industries, which is seen as critical for deploying real-world AI solutions in operations. In essence, Capgemini wants to blend IT and BPO capabilities to help clients redesign processes with AI – moving from labor-intensive, manual workflows to AI-driven, automated services that deliver better outcomes.
Synergies Gained by Capgemini
Geographic Reach: WNS’s strong North American and UK client base (e.g. United Airlines, Aviva, M\&T Bank, Centrica, T-Mobile) augments Capgemini’s footprint in these key regions. This helps Capgemini balance its traditionally Europe-heavy presence.
Vertical Depth: WNS is a domain-specialized BPO leader in sectors like banking/financial services, insurance, healthcare, telecom/media, travel & hospitality, procurement and others.
Service & Capability Synergies: WNS adds roughly $1.3 billion in high-margin (18–19% op. margin) BPO revenue to Capgemini, along with ~50k skilled personnel in process management. This significantly enlarges Capgemini’s Business Services arm, notably in F&A, industry-specific BPO services, CX support, and even analytics/AI solutions. WNS’s investments in digital platforms and AI will mesh with Capgemini’s own AI engineering and ecosystem partnerships.
Impact on the IT and BPO Services Industry
The acquisition marks one of the largest IT–BPM industry consolidations in a decade and helps Capgem join the top ranks of integrated IT/BPO providers, better positioned to go head-to-head with Accenture, TCS, Infosys, Cognizant and others that offer combined technology and operations services. This could help Capgem establish leadership in the emerging AI-enabled operations space.
AI-Centric Alliances and Offerings Gain Momentum
HCLTech announced a multi-year strategic collaboration with OpenAI – becoming one of OpenAI’s first “strategic services partners” – to help enterprises adopt OpenAI’s models at scale. HCLTech will integrate OpenAI’s AI product portfolio into its own solutions (e.g. AI Foundry, AI engineering frameworks) to accelerate clients’ deployment of generative AI across business functions.
Tech Mahindra launched an “Agentic AI Production Center” in collaboration with startup mimik to help clients build and deploy autonomous AI agents on edge devices.
In the telecom sector, Tech Mahindra also inked a new partnership with Aduna, a global network-API aggregator backed by major telcos and Ericsson. The alliance will help telecom operators monetize their 5G network capabilities via standardized APIs.
Client Deals: Expanding Partnerships for Agility and ROI
This week’s client announcements highlight a trend of deepening existing relationships with an emphasis on efficiency gains and modernization.
For example, Cognizant renewed a multi-year collaboration with Norway’s Aker Solutions, extending a partnership that began in 2016. The new agreement focuses on transforming Aker’s IT operations with AI and cloud: Cognizant will deploy its Neuro® platform (a generative AI and automation toolkit) to modernize Aker’s infrastructure, networks, and applications, all while maintaining stable operations.
HCLTech expanded its long-running engagement with Equinor, Europe’s largest energy provider. Under a new agreement, HCLTech will support Equinor’s next phase of digital transformation across cloud, cybersecurity, and digital workplace initiatives. Kyndryl – which often manages back-end infrastructure – also secured a notable renewal: a three-year extension with Asendia. Kyndryl will now take on an expanded role managing Asendia’s mission-critical applications on AWS cloud, delivered through Kyndryl’s cloud-native services framework.
In Australia, DXC Technology deployed a generative AI solution for Ventia, one of ANZ’s largest infrastructure services firms, to streamline the bid-proposal process for major contracts. The custom platform, called Tendia, was built with DXC and uses AWS AI services (like Amazon Bedrock and Kendra) to automatically gather and draft content for tender responses.
Strategic Initiatives and Ecosystem Moves
IT service firms are positioning themselves through ecosystem plays and capability launches. The HCLTech–OpenAI partnership, discussed earlier, not only brings cutting-edge AI to clients but also signals something about talent: HCLTech will internally roll out OpenAI tools like ChatGPT Enterprise to its 225,000+ employees. This is meant to boost productivity.
Cognizant this week joined a White House-led pledge to invest in AI education for America’s youth. By signing the “Pledge to America’s Youth: Investing in AI Education,” This is a long-term CSR and talent pipeline play – essentially helping to cultivate future AI developers, knowing the industry faces a talent crunch.