WIPRO technologies

Introduction and Historical Development:

Wipro ltd originally as a manufacturer of vegetable ghee and edible oil etc was established in the year 1945.Later it diversified into various other businesses and made a foray into Information Technology business in 1982.It entered into the area of finance in 1992 through Wipro finance.

Wipro ltd originated from an old mill in Amalner, Maharashtra was founded in 1947 by Azim Premji’s father. Because of sudden death of his father in 1966 Azim Premji took over the leadership of the company at the age of 21, when he was just a graduate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. After taking the position he transformed Wipro into a consumer goods company and 1975 he introduced Wipro Fluid Power which manufacture hydraulic and pneumatic cylinder.

When IBM left India in 1977 Wipro stepped in into Information technology business. In 1979 it started developing its own computer and by 1981 it started selling finished products. This made Wipro India’s first computer makers. After getting licensed technology from Sentinel Computers it started making India’s first minicomputer and hired experienced managers to handle the management.

Wipro forayed into software development in 1982 and introduced customized software packages for its hardware customers. Thus it expanded the business in IT sector and later developed India’s first 8086 chip. It started its off shore business in the United states in 1992 and was listed in New York Stock exchange in the year 2000.it has been acknowledged as an offshore provider of technology services by many research firm.

Products and Services:

Wipro provides a comprehensive range of IT services, BPO services, IT consulting, testing, research and development services in the area of hardware and software design to companies worldwide and also consumer care and lighting business.

Source: www.wikipedia.org, www.wipro.com

It mainly deals with the following business:

IT Services: Its IT services varies from Enterprise Application Services like ERP,SCM, CRM, e-procurement to E-Business Solution and host into almost all the industry which includes finance, telecom, media and entertainment, Utilities and Energy.

Product Engineering Solution: Wipro is one of the largest providers of R&D services in the world which uses extended model for leveraging R&D investment and also accessing knowledge and experience from the people across the globe.

Consulting Services: It offers quality consulting, Business consulting, process consulting and technology consulting.

Business Process Outsourcing: It is one of the largest BPO services in the areas of Finance & Accounting, Procurement, HR and Loyalty.

Technology Infrastructure services: In terms of revenue, people and customer it is the one of the largest Indian IT infrastructure provider with 200 customers in US, Japan , Europe and over 650 customers in India.

Industry Analysis:

Information Technology is one of the fastest growing industries in the current environment. It has not only foster the pace of globalization but also brought the humanity which was never seen before by breaking all geographical and territorial barriers. By doing so it has contributed a good share to the overall growth process of the world. Therefore India is emerging as IT sourcing hub wherein the key drivers includes: high talented labour pool, cost arbitrage, quality advantage, faster time to market etc. Economies of scale and insatiable demand from both consumers and enterprise characterize this rapidly growing industry. There are many facets of IT industry: Computer hardware, software and services. Many a times it also includes telecommunication hardware and software and services.

Many other countries have also plunged in to reap their advantage and countries like China, Taiwan has created their niche for themselves in the area of hardware and software. In information and communication the world leader is US which represents 40 % of global spending. Since 2000 it has increased about 2000 and almost 1.3 trillion since 2005.

Source: www.wipro.com

Many other countries have also plunged in to reap their advantage and countries like China, Taiwan has created their niche for themselves in the area of hardware and software. In information and communication the world leader is US which represents 40 % of global spending. Since 2000 it has increased about 2000 and almost 1.3 trillion since 2005.

India is considered as a preferred location to offshore their IT and back office operation by different companies. The financials looks most attractive here and also provides low cost advantage. According to h (National Association of Software and Service Companies),In India the revenue of IT sector has risen by 1.2% of GDP in the FY1997-98 and estimated 5.8% growth by the FY 2009-10.As per their Latest findings:

1. Indian IT/BPO sector grew by 12 percent in FY2009 to reach US$ 71.7 billion in aggregate revenue (including Hardware).Out of this Software segment accounts for US $59.6.

2. ITO/BPO exports grew by 16 % from US $40.9 billion in FY 2008-09 to US $47.3 billion in FY 2008-09.

3. The top three countries in the 2009 Global Services Location Index (GSLI) are- India, China and Malaysia

Source: www.ibef.org/industry/informationtechnology.aspx

SWOT Analysis:

Strengths

· It has a large number of clients which includes Nortel, Compaq etc.

· It has big operating profit margins around 33.3%

· Strong R &D accounts for one of the major strength

· Employee base is very large with low attrition rate

· It is the market leader in offshore business process outsourcing and consulting.

Weakness –

· Less focus on consumer and engineering products.

· More attention to US and European market than others.

Opportunities –

· Boom in the IT sector.

· Upcoming new technologies.

· Wide scope of expanding business worldwide

Threats –

· Emergence of small IT companies.

· Diversification of other competing companies.

Source:scribd.com/doc/2063644

Competing companies and their market Share:

The main competitors of Wipro include Infosys, Satyam, TCS and IBM. The Indian IT services market is estimated to be $4.8 billion.IBM has the largest market share of 10.8% emerged as the largest vendor in the IT Service market. According to a research report by Springboard Research Wipro and TCS are ranked second and third with a market share of 8.7% & 6.1 % respectively. In the year 2008,IBM continues to be the leader by entering into other verticals like retail, healthcare, and insurance along with telecom and government sector. Wipro records 43% growth than the previous year and establish high growth. Other top ten player in the list includes HP-EDS,HCL, Datacraft , Satyam and Siemens Information System Limited.

Source: www.infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4161807.cms, www.hoovers.com/wipro-technologies

Main Achievements:

· Wipro was awarded Gold Level Status in Microsoft’s Windows for the first Indian IT Service Provider.

· Wipro is the world 1st PCMM Level 5 software company

· It is the only Indian company to have a position in the list of top 10 Global Outsourcing Providers.

· It has world’s largest independent R&D service provider.

· Among all the IT service company Wipro was the first one to use Six Sigma.

· It is ranked third in offshore BPO service provider in the world

· It is the first company to receive the highest category for stakeholders value creation by credit rated agency.

· For its Global Command Centre it got BS15000 certification.

Source: www.wipro.com/corporate/aboutus/awards-recognition.htm

Major Stakeholders and Key Decision Makers:

The company has 6 non-executive directors, 3 executive director and 1 executive cum chairman of the board. The profile of the directors is as follows:

Azim H Premji – Chief Executive Director, chairman and Managing Director since September 1968.He holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Dr Ashok Ganguly- Director on board since 1999.He is currently chairman of first source solution and ABP private ltd. He has also been director on the Central Board of the Reserve Bank since 2000.He is a member of Prime minister council and also advisory committee of Microsoft corporation. He is a recipient of Economic times Lifetime Achievement Award and also Padma Vibhushan.

B C Prabhakar- He serves as a director on Board since February 1997.He holds a BA in political science and sociology and BL from Mysore University, India. He also serves as board of directors of 3M and Automotive Axles Limited.

Dr Jagdish N Seth- He is on board since January 1999.He has been a professor in Emory University. He holds a BCom (Honors) from Madras University India and MBA and PHD from University of Pittsburgh, USA.

Narayan Vaghul- He holds a bachelor degree in commerce from Madras University and serves this company since June 1997.He is also the chairman of the board of ICICI bank and Mahindra and Mahindra.

Priya Mohan Sinha- He became the director of the company on January 1 2002.He was a chairman in Pepsico India and President of Pepsi food limited since July 1992.He was on the executive board of Hindustan lever Limited for 11 years. He holds a bachelor of Arts from Patna University and Advance Management Program from MIT, USA.

William Arthur Owens- He holds MBA (Honors) from George Washington University, a BS in Mathematics from US Naval Academy and BA and MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University. He has been a director of the company since July 1, 2006. He serves many other companies like SAIC, Nottel network as Director of the Board.

Mr Suresh S Senapathy- He is a chief financial officer and executive director of the company since 2008.He has been serving the company for different position since April 1980.He has done his B-com from Utkal University, India. He has been on the board of many Wipro subsidiary companies.

Mr Suresh Vaswani-He is a Joint CEO (IT business) and executive director since April 2008.He is associated with the company since 1990 working for different positions. He holds a Btech degree from IIT Kharagpur and Post graduate in diploma management from Indian Institute of Management Ahemdabad , India.

Mr Girish S Paranjpe- He has done Bcom from Bombay University, India and is a fellow member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He serves the company as a Joint CEO and executive director since 2008.

Source:Wipro Annual Report 2008-09

Break through into IT/BPO Industry

The Indian It industry has played an important role in placing India on a global map. It is due to the success of the IT industry that India now has the power to reckon with. As per National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), the revenue of this sector has risen from 1.2% to 5.8 % in the FY 2008-09.

As per NASSCOM the latest findings are:

* The Indian IT sector has grown by 12% in the year 2009 to reach US $ 71.7 billion. Of this the software and services segment was US$ 59.6 million.

* IT/BPO exports grew by 16% in the year 2008-2009.

Although there is uncertainty in the global economy the top three major IT companies are- Infosys, TCS and Wipro. These companies have seen growth from all important sources of income.

At present, there are around 6o million internet users in the country. This can be attributed to the fact that the number of active internet entities rose to 8.6 million in March 2009 from 7.2 million in March 2008.

Survival of the company in the first 3 years

The initial stages of an organization will determine whether the organization can survive in the sector or not. Thus the initial stages of the organization are very important for it. The company is required to make its mark and establish itself in these years. The company has to make itself known in the market and build a reputation. It has to attract the customers and retain them by building trust and relationship with them.

The above mentioned points make the initial stages of the company very crucial for its survival.

The company can survive its initial stages by:

· Optimum allocation of resources:

When the organization is established, it has to take special care in allocating its resources the company has to do an optimum allocation of resources. They have to make the best use of the resources available to them and forecast the demand for the resources as well. The resources available to the organization like the financial resources, the labor etc has to be utilized at the optimum level.

The organization needs to take into account that the resources are not over used or over utilized which can harm the organization.

· Innovation

To survive in the competitive market, it is necessary for the organization to keep innovating. It has to innovate its products and services so that it can offer better services to the customers. Initially, innovation is the key to survive in the competitive market.

· Research and Development

The organization needs to spend its resources on the research and development. It is necessary to have a good R&D department do that the organization can provide new and better product and services that the customer demands.

· Differentiate the products

To survive in the market, it is very important to attract the right customer at the right time. One of the ways of doing do is by providing differentiated products and services to them. The organization will not be able to survive if it offers me- too products. Thus differentiating the product becomes very important for the organization.

· Provide Customized products

The company needs to be flexible and provide the products that meet the needs of the customers. For this the company has to customize its products and services. By doing so it will be able to attract more customers, satisfy them and build long term relationship with them.

Why and how customers are convinced to award first ITO/BPO project to the company?

It is very important for the company that its customers are convinced and satisfied about the work that the company is doing.

The customers can be convinced about the company by the following ways:

· Products & Services provided by the company

The various services provided by the company play the key role in selecting the company. The customer looks for the best service at the best price. Another factor that differentiates the company is that how far is the service differentiated from that of its competitors or is it the me- to product. Wipro has provided the best services at the best prices to its customers. It provided them with the differentiated products to meet the needs and to satisfy the customers.

· Companies Values and policies:

The organizational values play an important role. The customers are interested in knowing what the company’s values are.

Wipro has good support of its values and policies. The company’s policy helps it to measure the appropriateness of its decisions and represents what the company wants to be.

· Employees and employment value proposition:

It is necessary to know who are the people, providing the service and who are the ones interacting with the ultimate customers. How far are the possessed by the employees in sync with the company’s values?

How satisfied are the customers working in the organization because the satisfied and happy employees will work better and provide better results which are beneficial for the customers.

Wipro makes their working experience an enjoyable one by providing an environment of honesty, trust and a challenging work.

· Customer Service

The kind of customer service that the company provides essentially the after sales service provided by the company play an important role in selecting the company to give the project.

Wipro provides good customer service and solves the issues that the customer has, at the earliest.

Ensuring service quality & customers satisfaction

Ensuring the quality of the service delivered is very important. The company has to provide best service available yet it has to be different from the competitors to retain the customer. Customer satisfaction is also equally important because only if the organization is able to satisfy the customer, it will be able to retain them.

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Wipro conducts surveys pertaining to the quality and customers satisfaction. These surveys provide an insight into how far the company has been able to meet the quality standards set by the sector and how much are the customer satisfied with their services. The surveys provide the company with a clear picture as in where the loop holes are and where they have to improve.

These activities help the organization fill in the gap, build good customer relations, make and provide better quality products and services than their competitors.

BUSINESS MODEL AND COMPETITION

A business model is any structure or framework which creates value from technology. A business model describes the core aspects of a business, like its value proposition, customers, market segmentation, revenue generations, and operational practices and policies, etc.

Wipro Technologies’ revenue streams consist of telecom, telecom service providers, embedded, finance, retail, energy & utilities and others.

A business model needs to be changing as per the requirements by the environment and situation. A business model will change and evolve overtime. A business model results from technological inputs to economic outputs and differs from strategy as a business model focuses on creating value. A business model does not deliver that value to the shareholder, and it assumes a limited economic knowledge.

ATTRACTING, HIRING AND RETAING IT BUSINESS STAFF

Every company requires quality IT employees to stay in the organisation for a long period of time contributing their skills and talent for the betterment of the company. Wipro needs to hire those employees who are committed to the long term vision of the company so that it saves money, time and other valuable resources in not re- hiring employees.

For making a good hiring decision the company needs to prepare an attractive job description by proper planning, research and analysing what exactly the company expects from the employees and what are the requirements of the company.

The job description requires proper planning and research in terms of what are the business goals and objectives of the company, what are the expectations of the company from the employees , take advice from IT consultants and if necessary use contacts of IT recruiters to get quality IT employees to apply for the jobs.

It is critical for the company to mention in its job description that it requires the employees to be an expertise in more than one IT career field and mention job titles of the respective fields. This increases the chance of the company to find more qualified candidates for the job.

The goal of every organisation is to retain the IT employees in the company for a long term as they are valuable assets and therefore the company should provide right salary with right incentives to prevent them from joining the competitors and sharing valuable information with competitors.

The following points need to be mentioned in the job description to keep the employees aware and to attract them to apply for the jobs in the company:

• Job Duration
• Preferred Years of Experience
• Education Level
• Salary range
• Types of technology the company requires
• Relocation Information
• Travel Information
• Security Clearance Information
• Summary Of the IT Job description.

In Wipro high growth opportunity, good working environment, corporate governance and company values and ethics attracts the IT employees. Wipro has planned well thought of programmes to reach out to the 95% of employee base that is not connected with emails. There is more awareness created among employees about what Wipro stands for- “Work Hard- Have Fun”.

A grievance handling mechanism also exists in the company where the employees can put forward their concerns and raise questions. This helps in retaining the employees as the employees feel belonged to the company and considers the company as their own. Also Wipro has introduced an element of fun at their workplace by organising events and group activities that helps in encouraging all the employees to pursue their individual as well as company objectives

TRAINING OF IT EMPLOYEES

Training is a vital part for any organisation and aims at improving human capital of the organisation. Training & Development of the employees is associated to support the mission, goals, objectives, long term vision and strategies of the company.

In this dynamic and rapidly changing world of IT, the companies need to continually evolve and develop their employees to survive in the industry and gain an edge over the competitors. Wipro should also explore innovative approaches of training combining both existing and emerging practises.

The following practises will help the company in training its IT employees and gaining maximum efficiency and productivity from the employees.

Aligning IT training with business goals:

By linking IT training programs to the overall business objectives of the company, they can promote employee/ staff development and help them achieve the corporate objectives. This can be achieved by following the below practises:

Ø Get executive- level sponsorship to ensure that the training strategies formulated are of best quality and will benefit the employees helping them to achieve the corporate objectives of the company.

Ø Involve key stakeholders in the training programmes like top management, functional managers, industry experts, important clients and end users in planning IT training.

Ø Train employees in new technology and practises and also address future skill needs.

Identify and assess IT training needs:

New innovation and new technology calls for continuous development and training of the employees. Wipro is known for its innovation and break through practises and the company needs to assess the competencies of the employees and identify if there are any gaps between the competencies they possess and the competencies required to perform the job. This can be achieved by following the below practises:

Ø Identify and document the skills required for each job description

Ø Maintain the current level of skills of employees

Ø Identify the gaps in skills and make the necessary arrangements to train the employees.

Ø Chart out individual development plans for the employees to make them more aware of their skills and what they need to do to improve and also make them more responsible in assessing their development needs.

Allocating IT training resources

For effective implementation of training programmes the company needs to prioritize and mange the necessary resources and make decisions on how to allocate the resources. This can be achieved by adopting the following practises:

Ø To select and mange the right training projects, an investment process needs to be in place.

Ø Make a cost benefit analysis for each training programme and the methods of delivery.

Ø Identify employees with high potential and provide them specialised training opportunities.

Ø Management training is very important for every organisation and ensure that right resources are allocated for this training.

Designing and Delivering IT training

After identifying training needs and allocation of resources the next step is to design and deliver the IT training to the employees to ensure that the employees learn during the training and apply what they have learnt in their jobs. Technology has enabled more flexible methods for delivering the training process and to make it more convenient. This can be achieved by adopting the following practises:

Ø Provide the trainees with the option of choosing which IT training delivery methods they prefer.

Ø On job training should be planned and monitoring the employees during this process is important

Ø Combine different teaching and training delivery methods

Ø Provide just in time training

Ø Use experts and consider outsourcing training solutions.

Evaluating the value of IT training:

The company needs to evaluate the It training and needs to determine if the content was understood by the employees. This can be achieved by adopting the following practises:

Ø Collect information on the impact of job performance with the help of training

Ø Test the employee’s skills

Wipro signed a MoU with the Acharya Nagarjuna University (ANU) to take the responsibility of training emerging graduates. Students with degree from regular colleges with good communication skills will be trained by Wipro and considered for employment.

Wipro boasts of a talent transformation division to improve employee skills through six different parameters. They are:

• Technology
• Domain knowledge
• Project Management
• Language Skills
• Line Behavioural
• Leadership

STRATEGIES OF WIPRO IN FACE OF OVERSEAS COMPETITION & COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Wipro Technologies part of Wipro Limited is a leading global provider of world class IT solutions. It makes up for around 67% of the company’s total revenues and is one of the fastest growing businesses of the company. Wipro believes in innovation and providing best quality to its consumers by combining people, processes and technologies to give innovative solutions. Wipro Technologies has a high powered client base which boasts of names like GM, Sony, Nike, Nortal, NYSE etc.

Sometime back Wipro was an anonymous corporation known for selling cooking oil and computers but today it is a $903 million global company where most of its business is contributed by information technology services.

To stay ahead of competition and be a leader in this industry the company follows many strategies to ensure it not only survives in the competitive environment but also thrives in competition and emerges a winner. Some of the strategies adopted by Wipro technologies to successfully compete in the overseas market are mentioned below.

One of the strategies adopted by Wipro to stay ahead in competition is that the company is using a small force of high level strategists who are focussed on specific industries and who can compete with any one for any given project.

The other strategy adopted by Wipro Technologies is “Power Consulting”:

Wipro is aware of a need to formulate a strategy which cannot be replicated or copied by the competitors easily and therefore thinks of strategies that will enable the company to gain a competitive edge. Wipro knew that the company can prosper by emphasising on providing services of increasingly high value to the customers. Therefore Wipro created development centres within its offices, each centre dedicated to a single important customer. The idea behind this strategy was to promote relationships that would create revenue for the company. At present Wipro hosts development centres for GM, Hewlett- Packard and other global companies which help them defeat their competitors and stay ahead.

Wipro Technologies also pays attention to quality and innovation and formulates strategies keeping these core points in mind. The company has trained 7000 employees in Six Sigma and has completed more than 1000 quality projects. To be a market leader in this competitive industry Wipro continuously innovates and automates the business processes with new technology benchmarks. Wipro ensures more productivity by fostering innovation, speed and synergy that help in sustaining the growth of the business and improving product margins. The global service delivery model pays emphasis on high quality with Six Sigma consistency that result in better efficiencies and returns on investments.

Wipro Technologies is also pursuing growth through inorganic routes or by becoming scale players and focussing their efforts on specialised and preferred areas. To stay ahead of competition the company invests in new skills/ technologies and also diversifies risk by venturing into and offering customers multiple service lines.

Outsourcing: Wipro is a leader in Global IT Infrastructure Outsourcing with the company being the best in market presence, excellent strategies and good service offering to the customers for the infrastructure space. The company believes delivering value through innovation and improvement. One of the most successful strategies of Wipro is building a strong global delivery model and having a strong client base.

Another effective strategy implemented by Wipro is adoption of Employee Self- Service portal that has enabled the company to handle the issue of rapid increase in employee headcount. By adopting this strategy the company could eliminate paper based processes which would take time and also crash cycle times of employee services. This way the company could sustain its growth and improve the operational efficiencies. The company made it a point to manage this change by involving key business stakeholders in all the IT decisions and implementations.

Wipro’s main competitive advantage is the company’s talent pool as it boats of Indian and western employees who are very educated and expertise in their fields. Wipro has developed their employees in such a way that they are completely dedicated to their project which has enhance the company’s intellectual capital, diminished needs for any rework and provided a sense of security to the clients and the employees.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS OF WIPRO

Some of the critical success factors that have made Wipro what it is today are that it invests heavily in its staff and employees, focussing on cutting edge technology making it a market leader and strong and ethical corporate governance. The critical success factors of the company are summarised below:

• Being a market leader by focussing and using cutting edge technology.
• Maintaining commitment to excellence.
• Pioneering the concept of Six Sigma qualities in India which has lead to reduction in cycle time and lesser defects in products and services.
• Maintaining transparency in its accounts and following ethical business practises.
• Providing the best after sales maintenance services
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