Tata Consultancy Services is India's foremost offshore service provider, followed by Infosys Technologies, Wipro Technologies, and Satyam Computer Services, according to a Gartner rating.

The first comprehensive rating grid of the Top 9 Indian global service vendors released by Gartner, the global infotech research firm, on Thursday assessed the firms in five evaluation levels across 14 parameters.

The Gartner Offshore Vendor Ratings provide clear, concise indicators of each vendor's overall status and the status of such initiatives as strategy, organization, product(s), technology, marketing, financials and support.

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Releasing the ratings, Partha Iyengar, research vice president, Gartner India, said: "The Gartner Offshore Vendor rating grid aims to dispel the myth that evaluating vendors on their financial strength and the size of orders alone is sufficient. The grid ratings focus on the vendor as a whole, not just on its position within a single market or based on a few select criteria."

"This is also the first time that Indian vendors are being rated against the criteria important to the global IT services, and not just offshore services, market. It is significant to note that they have demonstrated quite strong competitive positions even against this global Services framework," he said.

Satyam Computer Services, HCL Technologies Ltd, Patni Computer Systems Ltd, Convansys Corporation, Cognizant Technologies Solutions and Syntel are the other companies topping the chart in the descending order, it said.

"Offshore outsourcing is the world's fastest growing delivery model, and it is critical that Indian vendors develop capabilities that allow them to compete in international markets," said Iyengar.

"The vendor evaluation grid will allow both the vendor and customers to determine who is most likely to succeed as a 'global player' in the long-term offshore service scenario," he added.

Gartner said the ratings are against 'absolute' standards and requirements demanded by the global services market, not just the standards demanded by the offshore services market. Thus these ratings are not relative rankings of the vendors against each other but how well these vendors match up to global standards in the categories evaluated, he said.

Compiled over a period of six months, the Indian offshore vendor-rating grid was developed by Gartner's global analyst team covering the offshore services and BPO space, the research agency said.

The methodology included a combination of interviews with vendors and customers as well as research based on financials, strategy and technology.

Gartner said the vendor ratings aim to provide end-user organisations with a holistic view of vendors from which they are purchasing products and services, financial investors (bankers, venture capital, buy- and sell-side investors) with an independent and complete view of a vendor's strengths and challenges areas, and vendors with a total view of their potential partners, competitors and suppliers.