India is seeking to build globally competitive firms in consulting, legal services, accounting and credit ratings, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi placing the growth of domestic professional services companies among the ambitions for the country’s next phase of economic development.
In his Independence Day address from the Red Fort, Modi highlighted the need for Indian banks and pharmaceutical companies to secure positions among the world’s top five in their respective sectors. He also emphasised the need for Indian firms in consulting, legal services, accounting and credit ratings to emerge as globally competitive institutions, arguing that the country possesses the talent and capability required to excel in these fields.
The issue has surfaced repeatedly in policy discussions. The Prime Minister and the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister have previously highlighted India’s dependence on foreign firms in areas including consulting, auditing, legal services and credit ratings.
Government Procurement Rules Put Smaller Indian Firms at a Disadvantage
One of the central barriers identified is the way consultancy services have traditionally been procured by government departments and public institutions. Eligibility requirements designed to ensure quality have, in many cases, favoured large and established consulting companies.
Government tenders for assignments worth only a few crore rupees could prescribe turnover requirements running into hundreds or even thousands of crores. Other tenders have imposed conditions linked to overall staff strength, previous assignments or organisational experience that had little connection with the actual requirements of a project.
Such conditions have often left smaller and mid-sized Indian firms outside the competition even when they possessed qualified professionals and relevant expertise.
A sample study of consultancy procurement tenders issued by Central Government procuring entities on the Government e-Marketplace over the previous three financial years identified several recurring concerns. These included excessively high turnover requirements, disproportionate weight given to a consulting firm’s institutional experience compared with the qualifications of professionals proposed for an assignment, and minimum payroll requirements substantially exceeding the manpower needed for a project.
This creates a structural problem for emerging firms. Without access to significant assignments, they struggle to acquire the credentials needed to compete for larger projects, while established companies continue accumulating experience.
The Department of Expenditure issued an advisory on July 22, 2026, aimed at promoting a more capability-based and competition-oriented approach to government procurement of consultancy services.
The advisory seeks to move procurement away from institutional size and brand recognition towards the actual requirements of an assignment. Qualification criteria are expected to have a clearer relationship with the work being tendered rather than relying on unusually high turnover, staffing or experience thresholds.
It also cautions against turnover requirements that effectively restrict competition to the “Big Four or Five” consulting firms. Greater emphasis is expected to be placed on proposed methodology, work plans and the quality and experience of key professionals when consulting proposals are evaluated.
Talent Is Available, but Indian Firms Need Greater Scale
India’s challenge in building global professional services companies is not presented as a shortage of skilled professionals. Large numbers of Indian professionals work for leading consulting, accounting, rating and law firms in India and overseas, while professionals of Indian origin have reached senior leadership positions in major international organisations.
Many have been educated at India’s premier institutions and possess substantial international experience. Indian professionals already contribute to sophisticated advisory, financial, legal and corporate operations around the world.
The larger question is why this individual talent has not translated into Indian institutions of comparable international scale.
India’s economic history is cited as part of the explanation. In the decades following Independence, economic policy was strongly influenced by a state-led development model, while private enterprise operated within a heavily regulated environment. Relatively little policy attention was devoted to creating private-sector champions in consulting, law, accounting and other knowledge-intensive professional services.
The economic reforms initiated in 1991 opened India to greater competition, private investment and international capital. However, globalisation also encouraged greater reliance on established international companies for technology, manufacturing expertise and professional services, while building large Indian professional services institutions did not receive comparable policy attention.
Regulatory structures have presented another difficulty. Rules governing lawyers, accountants and other professionals have often constrained corporate structures, multidisciplinary practices and some forms of collaboration, making it harder to create firms with the organisational depth and range of expertise associated with global professional services companies.
International firms also benefit from cross-country experience, proprietary research, global networks and specialised sector knowledge. Indian firms need opportunities to build comparable expertise by competing for complex assignments and progressively moving up the value chain.
Regulatory Reform Seen as Key to Creating Global Champions
Procurement reform alone is unlikely to be sufficient if India wants domestic professional services firms to compete internationally. The regulatory framework governing professional firms would also need to evolve.
There is already movement towards enabling professionals to establish larger multidisciplinary organisations capable of combining expertise from different fields. Proposed changes to the Companies Act, 2013, could have implications for professionals seeking to create firms with more diversified pools of expertise and qualifications.
Modern consulting assignments increasingly span several disciplines. A major infrastructure project, digital transformation programme, corporate restructuring exercise or public-policy assignment may require expertise across law, finance, technology, engineering, economics, management and data analytics. Indian firms would therefore need organisational structures capable of assembling such multidisciplinary capabilities if they are to compete with international professional services groups.
At the same time, professional regulators would have to balance concerns over independence, ethics and professional standards with the need to allow Indian firms to expand. Regulatory reform, in this approach, would not mean lowering standards but developing frameworks in which professional integrity and institutional scale can coexist.
Government agencies, meanwhile, should neither favour foreign consultants because of their global brands nor favour domestic firms simply because they are Indian. Competition should be based on competence, expertise, innovation, confidentiality and value for money, with capable domestic firms receiving a genuine opportunity to compete.
Indian firms would also need to invest in research, intellectual property, sectoral expertise, technology, global networks and talent development. Government policy can create opportunities, but companies would ultimately have to demonstrate that they can execute complex assignments at international standards.
India has already produced globally competitive companies in information technology, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, engineering and several other sectors. The emerging policy ambition is to extend that record to professional services by turning India’s large pool of individual professional talent into institutions capable of competing at global scale.
