“If you can’t beat ‘em - Join ‘em.” That seems to be the newest mantra the IT companies have worked out to win the intensifying-by-the-minute war for talent.

Caught in a tight situation where they can’t compete against the big firms in terms of fat packages and juicier assignments, the smaller firms are fast realising, that they will have to think out of the box to win and retain top talent, otherwise its relegation to the backbencher’s club.

So when midsize IT firm Hexaware Technologies decided it wanted to focus on the niche area of risk management , rather going about it the traditional way, by going out in the market and hiring consultants, it decided to try out a rather novel way — float a joint venture with a group of professionals .

The professionals, based in the UK, were all high-end consultants who had worked with leading companies in the risk management space, and were unlikely to be lured by a bulging pay packet alone. Of course, another option before Hexaware was to acquire a firm which was already in this line of business and later shift some of the processes offshore to be cost competitive. This would have been similar to its acquisition of the US-based Focus Frame, which it had done a few quarters ago.

But instead of going for time tested methods, Hexaware decide to opt for a third, altogether different route, where it formed a joint venture with Pemtrad International, the firm floated by the group of consultants . The JV named Risk Technology International, had an 85% holding by Hexaware and a 15% holding by Pemtrad.

“This was cheaper than an acquisition but with all the benefits,” says Hexaware executive chairman, Atul Nishar, “We will get the business through Pemtrad. The execution will be by RiskTech and Hexaware. The role of Pemtrad will be to leverage their network of contacts and bring the business to the table,” adds, R V Ramanan, chief software architect of Hexaware.

In short, a top layer of consultants who had the relationships and domain expertise were added, and they married it with the already present capability of low cost delivery of services.

The Pemtrad’s consultants, with experience ranging from 15-25 years in enterprise risk management, have credibility in the market and also the much needed access to CEOs and boardrooms. RiskTech’s CEO and one of Pemtrad promoters, Peyman Mestchian, for instance , brings 25 years of experience , that include prior experience as director of the business risk consulting practice at Ernst & Young and as global head of enterprise risk management at business analytics leader SAS.