Is Our Engineering Acquisition Prediction Coming True Already?

"We predict that the top 6 India-centric service providers – TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, and Tech Mahindra – will be interested in acquisitions of both captives and niche service providers in this [engineering services] space in 2015."  When we wrote this as part of our Autonabilized 2015 HfS Predictions, we didn’t expect it would potentially be happening in Q1. According to media sources, Geometric, a leading niche engineering service provider is looking for buyers and Tech Mahindra and HCL are among the list of potential suitors.

Geometric, headquartered in Mumbai, reported $181.4 million in revenue during last year and employs 4,400 skilled resources across 13 global delivery locations in the US, France, Germany, Romania , China and India. The company's portfolio covers global engineering services, product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, embedded systems solutions, software solutions, and intellectual property (IP) led technology and products.

Geometric can be attractive for service provider such as Tech Mahindra or HCL as it will provide access to:

1. 4400 skilled and hard to find engineering resources
    
2. Marquee clients in automotive, aerospace, heavy engineering, machine tools, and oil and gas verticals
    
3. Strong relationships with leading PLM ISVs
    
4. Portfolio of IP led products and solutions

In our inaugural 2015 Engineering Services Blueprint Report we are evaluating capabilities of  top 30 key engineering service providers (AF, AKKA, Alten, Altran, Assystem, Bertrandt, Capgemini, Cognizant, Cyient, EDAG, ESI Group, Ferchau, Genpact, Geometric, HCL, IAV, IGate, Infosys, ITC Infotech, KPIT, L&T Technology Services, Neilsoft, QuEST Global, Ranal, Segula, Semcon, Tata Technologies, TCS, Tech Mahindra, and Wipro). It doesn't happen very often that in the middle of a study, one come across acquisition possibilities among participating service providers.

While we can't predict which service provider will eventually acquire Geometric, what we can predict is that as engineering services evolves from a niche offering to the mainstream, we will hear more such acquisition possibilities.