Infosys, Wipro said to be eyeing analytics firm

Indian offshore giant Infosys and Wipro are reportedly both gunning for MarketRX, a US-based provider of analytics services for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, according to a report in the Economic Times, an Indian paper.

Analytics has attracted a lot of attention from outsourcers recently as a higher value service to tack on to their existing offerings. Much of the work in this area is around marketing analytics - tools and services to help companies better understand and devise customer strategies.

Some Indian vendors have built up their own analytics business, and others have acquired analytics vendors in recent years. WNS, for example, earlier this year bought Marketics in a deal worth up to $65m. And last year fellow BPO provider EXLService bought Inductis, another analytics provider.

But with Infosys and Wipro now eyeing this space, it's no longer just the BPO specialists looking to get serious about analytics. The market for analytics is young but clearly poised for growth. And companies seem willing to pay dearly for access to this market. The Economic Times said MarketRX could fetch a price between $150m and $160m, some five times its annual revenue.