Accenture is reportedly negotiating with major telecom giants in India for possible outsourcing deals in the business process areas besides venturing into management consulting projects and non-core functions, published media reports say.

A news report published in the Economic Times said that these contracts could be smaller in size and worth anywhere between 50 and 200 million dollars that could bring in better margins for the global management consulting and outsourcing firm.

The article quoted Martin I Cole, group CEO for communications and high tech at Accenture as saying that discussions on process outsourcing in areas like music and video offerings were on with existing and new telecom companies.

While the first wave of telecom outsourcing saw tech firms like IBM taking up back-end operations, the second phase is likely to provide an opportunity to companies that can shoulder operational hazards of new business offerings by telecom companies like video and music on demand.

Accenture was late in joining the lucrative Indian telecom market and actually started with Virgin Mobile whom they helped in setting up the mobile virtual network operator services.