TCS bags Rs 15,000-crore BSNL deal to deploy 4G network across India

TCS

A consortium led by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on May 22 announced that it received an Advance Purchase Order (APO) valued at over Rs 15,000 crore (around $1.8 billion) from government-owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). This deal will be a shot in the arm for India's largest software exporter coming at a time when its major markets such as US and Europe are slowing down.

With this, TCS will be undertaking deployment of 4G network across India for BSNL, the company confirmed in regulatory filings on BSE.

The consortium includes Tata Group's telecom gear making company Tejas Networks, which will  be responsible for supplying and servicing the Radio Access Networks (RAN) equipment.

Along with TCS, the APO was also issued to state-run ITI Ltd for this project. According to analysts, about 20 percent of the work and deal value will go to ITI.

While the deal is revenue boosting for TCS, it could also be margin dilutive with other players being involved.

An analyst seeking anonymity said that the margins from the deal for TCS would stand at less than 10 percent, given that there will be a lot of pass throughs expected. Typically government projects offer margins of around 10 percent.

"But this is a big delta for Tejas Networks and a meaningful win for them," the person added.

According to Pareekh Jain, Founder and CEO, EIIRTrend, with Tejas Networks taking over manufacturing of the equipment and hardware needed, margin dilution would be less overall as no other third party player is getting involved outside the consortium.

"The TCS-led consortium include Tejas Networks and C-DOT. The billing for the other two consortium partners will be done directly to them in this deal. So, it won't be that margin dilutive for TCS, but its standalone revenue could come down,” he added.

This will be the IT services behemoth's third major deal in 2023, following a $723-million deal from UK-based Phoenix Group and another one with British retailer Marks and Spencer (M&S). Though the exact deal size was not disclosed, according to reports, the M&S deal was worth $1 billion.

TCS' government project approach

Irrespective of the margin gains, TCS' approach towards government projects has been slightly different from its peers including Infosys. It has been an outlier and has seen better success rate in the industry when it comes to running public-facing government services portals.

TCS sees Indian government projects as a training ground to learn from the complexity and replicate this in the way they architect projects for various countries. The focus is on understanding the scale and not alone on profit margins.

It already runs runs India's passport project, the Indian Railways’ IRCTC site, and India Post’s digital project. TCS' contract for running the Passport Seva Programme was renewed last year in deal worth Rs. 8,000 crores, according to industry sources.

Overall for the IT services sector which count the US and Europe markets as their biggest revenue contributors, India is relatively a smaller market accounting for less than 5 percent of the top IT firms' revenue.

In FY23, TCS reported the highest revenue contribution from India at 5 percent, Infosys earned 3.2 percent and Wipro reported 4 percent revenue from India respectively.

Reviving BSNL

This deal was in talks since September last year.

In July 2022, the Union Cabinet had approved a Rs 1.64 lakh crore revival package for BSNL, which included cash support of Rs 43,964 crore and non-cash support of Rs 1.20 lakh crore.

The package had three main elements - improving the quality of BSNL services, de-stressing the balance sheet, and expanding the fibre reach through merger with Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL).

This TCS-ITI deal is likely to be a part of the same package. BSNL's 4G services are expected to be rolled out across 100,000 towers or sites.