HCL Technologies has completed its £440 million (Rs3,100 crore) acquisition of UK-based SAP consulting company Axon Plc, the largest Indian acquisition in the IT space.

HCL, the country's fifth largest IT software and services provider, expects Axon to add around $600 million (Rs2,880 crore), or 30 per cent, to the current HCL revenue.

Axon, however, will remain a separate entity, called HCL Axon, and the  current chief executive of Axon Group, Steve Cardell, will continue to head the new entity.

Around 1,700 people from Axon's current SAP practice will also join HCL through the reverse merging of HCL's SAP practice with Axon.

''A Blue Ocean thinking to create uncontested market spaces is an underpinning of the HCL transformation story. The merger of Axon and HCL SAP practice presents a great opportunity to bring new capabilities to the market with a truly global delivery model providing the full lifecycle suite of services - fitting into HCL's Blue Ocean strategy perfectly.

HCL has a long history of experience in ensuring smooth integration and preserving the unique identity and character of the companies we acquire, and we welcome Axon employees into the HCL family in the form of HCL Axon'', said Vineet Nayar, CEO and member of  the board, HCL Technologies.

''Enterprise application services is one of the 8 areas of growth at HCL," said said Ram Krishna, corporate vice president and head, enterprise application services, HCL. "The merger of Axon with HCL's SAP practice is a transformational one that will make HCL significant in this chosen area of growth.

Krishna said, "Combining HCL AXON's capabilities with HCL's breadth of IT services and proven track record in delivering large transformational engagements allow for constructing credible and unique value propositions that enable IT transformation with no additional spending. The positive employee morale and our own experience of successfully integrating the varied organisations we have acquired over the years make us confident of the transformational impact of this merger on our customers, employees and shareholders,''

Steve Cardell, president, HCL Axon, said, ''HCL Axon has enormous potential given the complementary strengths of Axon and HCL SAP practice. The current capability gap prevents vendors from addressing the full opportunity. As HCL Axon, we will be combining Axon's strong business benefit led consulting and implementation capabilities with HCL's strong global delivery based application and infrastructure management capabilities. We are confident of being able to leapfrog competition in delivering unique value on an end-to-end basis for customers who have chosen SAP as their strategic technology platform and whose business challenge is transformation.''

Currently enterprise application services (EAS) constitutes 11 per cent of HCL's revenue. The combination of the two will create a business accounting for 25 per cent of HCL's revenues.
 
HCL said its revenues for the October-December quarter will reflect 15 days' revenue from the new entity. From 2009, the entire revenue will start getting reflected, it added.