The US economic slowdown and changing business needs has resulted in new pricing patterns and nature of deals at Accenture's BPO business operations.

The company, which provides consultancy and IT services, admits to pricing pressures for some deals on the low-end transactional work. Besides there is also a shift from fixed-fee contracts to contracts that are a mix of fixed and variable fees, according to G. Raghuraman, Lead Executive at Accenture India Delivery Centre Network, BPO.

This is due to the fact that clients are looking for more business benefits and more multi-geography contacts, Raghuraman was quoted as saying in an article published in the Hindu Business Line recently.

Customers want to use a wider network of global delivery centres and global opportunities and also seek managed distribution of work. And the BPOs with larger global networks and manpower across many locations are likely to benefit from this trend, he believes and adds that business may shift to larger companies.

He however denied that India's competitiveness in the BPO market would diminish as a result of these new trends and said Accenture's clients choose other locations only after having a large footprint in India and are often add-ons to their India presence.

He also revealed that Accenture was seeking to expand its footprint in Mexicon and Brazil in addition to India and Philippines, countries which Raghuraman claims are preferred destinations for customer support.