Simmons cements Indian dominance

Simmons & Simmons has completed the latest in a long run of outsourcing deals for Indian clients, consolidating its position as the leading firm in this niche market.

Led by IT partner David Barrett, the firm has just acted for Indian company Tata Consultancy Services in an £896m deal to provide the NHS with customised healthcare software over nine years.

Barrett has been building up Simmons’ offshore outsourcing practice for the last four years, concentrating on working for Indian IT suppliers.

Barrett said he got into the Indian outsourcing market when he started at Simmons in 2000 and saw this as an opportunity to build up business for the firm’s IT team.

“It’s fair to say that the firm didn’t have a large IT practice when I started, so I had the task of building a practice and looking for markets that I didn’t think people were exploiting yet,” he explained.

Barrett is now looking to snap up work on outsourcing deals in Central and Eastern Europe and China.

“We’re now looking for more opportunities to do this kind of work in Central and Eastern Europe and China, as we see the same sorts of things [as companies outsourcing to India] happening over there,” said Barrett.

Barrett said he had already completed an outsourcing deal in Latvia.

While he has concentrated on acting for outsourcing suppliers in India, Barrett is seeking to leverage off Simmons’ existing domestic client base to act for UK companies seeking to outsource parts of their businesses to Central and Eastern Europe or China.