In a recent press release, IDC announced a list of the top ten rising stars in Europe, in which Wipro Technologies ranks second, with 69 per cent growth in 2000-01, and Infosys technologies ranks fourth with growth of 57 per cent in the same period.

In overall ranking in Western Europe, Wipro ranks 95 with total services revenue of $ 92 million in 2001. Infosys leads marginally at a rank of 91 and services revenue of $ 99 million for the same period. Tata Technologies ranked above the other two at 83rd position. However, it missed a place in the top ten rising stars, with growth of 33 per cent in 2000-2001.

According to IDC, the European market has been encouraging, with the number of deals doubling in the last quarter of 2001 from the corresponding quarter of 2000, though the deals have been largely tactical in nature. Indian companies have captured a large chunk of this pie, as is evident from their growth in the region.

Though the total IT services industry in Western Europe grew at a slow 7 per cent in 2001-02, outsourcing grew twice as fast at 15 per cent during the same period. The skills shortage and need of cost-cutting that has marked the European technology sector provides great opportunities for the Indian offshore service providers.

According to Ms Marianne Kolding, Director European Services Research, IDC, Europe, "The opportunities lie mostly in the application development and application maintenance areas - and increasingly in application management which is currently a market growing at a 19 per cent compound annual growth rate in Western Europe between 2001-2006. Further opportunities can be found in parts of the implementation of enterprise application, e.g customisation elements."