Indian engineers known for their software development and allied services prowess, are now moving beyond this sphere into consulting and software testing which are hot career prospects. Globally Indian IT majors are increasingly adopting technology-consulting hoping for a slice of the $21 billion pie. Last year, Indian technology companies barely earned $120 million from consulting, a tiny fraction of the $17 billion raked in from IT exports.

TCS hopes to earn more than 10 percent of its revenues from consulting in the next three years, up from the current three percent. TCS has already roped in over 400 consultants worldwide. Consulting income for Wipro Technologies growing at 40 percent already constitutes six percent of revenues. Wipro hopes to reach 10 percent in less than three years. By 2007, Infosys whose consulting services contribute four percent to its turnover hopes to ramp up the number of consultants from the current 120 to over 500.

Consulting is a pleasantly profitable business with billing rates five to ten times that of pure application work. One of the biggest advantages that Indian companies have is cost. By replicating the offshoring model of IT services, TCS plans to hire 60 percent of its consultants in the U.S. and Europe, with the balance based in India.