New York: Almost 21 Indian firms, including Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro, are among the top 100 BPO firms in the world, according to a new study.

Five of the them, who figure among the 10 best outsourcing service providers, are: Infosys (No 3), TCS (6), Wipro (7), Genpact (9) and Tech Mahindra (10), according to the study - '2008 Global Outsourcing 100' - compiled by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP).

Accenture and IBM head the list published as an advertising feature by IAOP in the current Fortune 500 issue of Fortune magazine.

The other 16 Indian companies in the list are HCL Technology (11), Mastek (16), WNS Global Services (19), Hexaware (22), ExlService (26), 24/7 Customer (28), Cambridge (36), ITC Infotech (40), KPIT Cummins (42), Patni (46), Zensar (53), MindTree (54), Mphasis (56), Aditya Birla Minacs (62), FirstSource Solutions (73) and Cross-Tab (78).

The key strength of Wipro and TCS is their employee management while the strong point of Infosys and Genpact is their executive leadership, according to the New York-based IAOP.

The Bangalore-based Infosys is one of India's largest IT companies, with nine development centres in the country and 30 offices abroad with 88,000 professionals on its rolls.

Founded in 1981 by N R Narayana Murthy and six others, it announced a consolidated net profit of Rs 46.59 billion for the last fiscal, a 21 per cent growth over the previous year.

TCS, part of the Tata group, is one of the world's largest providers of IT and BPO services. It has the largest number of employees among Indian IT companies with staff strength of over 110,000 in 47 countries. It posted a profit after tax last year of Rs 50.26 billion, up 19 per cent over the previous year.

The evaluation team was led by IAOPs' managing director of Thought Leadership, Jagdish Dalal, a renowned outsourcing expert.

Source : IANS