Verizon Business, a company division of global telecom giant Verizon Communications, stated that it has made HCLTech its primary managed network Services (MNS) collaborator in all networking deployments for global enterprise customers. In a filing to the exchanges, HCLTech informed the deal value has an estimated new total contract amount (TCV) of $ 2.1 billion for a duration of six years. This is the largest ever deal for the company after the $1.3 billion Xerox renewal deal in 2019. This comes at a time when large IT providers have been announcing mega deals even as technology spending has been hit due to macroeconomic concerns. 

The US and Europe such large deals could be a factor in companies driving cost efficiencies and consolidating their vendors. HCLTech CFO Prateek Aggarwal that the company has a number of large deals at the advanced stages of the pipeline. "During the first quarter results, we announced that our pipeline was at an all-time high. This one was among the highest in that, but there are other large and mega deals which will take the requisite time required to fructify, and we hope to win them," said Aggarwal. In recent weeks, Infosys has disclosed a $2 billion 5-year with a large client and another $1.5 billion deal from BP. Meanwhile,

India’s largest IT services major, TCS, has announced an estimated $1.9 billion decade-long deal with UK-based Nest.“Managed Network Services is core to our business, and we’re proud to collaborate with Verizon Business to lead MNS in all of their network deployments, modernization, and operations for private enterprise,” said C Vijayakumar, chief executive HCLTech. Verizon Business will continue to lead all customer acquisition, sales, solutions, and overall planning and development with its customers. HCLTech will lead the post-sale implementation and ongoing support. 

A select group of Verizon Business global customer operations staff will transition to HCLTech. Anil Ganjoo, chief growth officer- Americas for TMT, retail, and CPG businesses at HCLTech, added that the telecom sector continues to show interest in areas like 5G and edge computing. "The telecom sector had a rough patch last year, and discretionary spending continues to be under pressure. However, large telcos that have the bandwidth are looking at monetizing these offerings," said Ganjoo. “With their (HCLTech's) IT service expertise and ongoing support of our enterprise networking deployments, 

Verizon Business can modernize our service delivery and simultaneously heighten our focus on helping customers incorporate next-generation technology like 5G, SD-WAN, and SASE into their operations and their own customer offerings,” said Kyle Malady, CEO of Verizon Business.”The partnership will offer customers an MNS portfolio and joint innovation on an integrated platform. This comes at a time when IT majors have called out an increasing delay in deal closures and a shortage of discretionary deals. Providers have, however indicated that large and transformational deals are still there in the market, which will benefit the larger players.