Wipro Limited (, , ) is a global information technology (IT) services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. According to the 2011 revenue, Wipro is the third largest IT services company in India and employs more than 122,385 people worldwide as of March 2011. Wipro is ranked 31 globally in 2011 in the list of IT service providers. It is 9th most valuable brand in India according to an annual survey conducted by Brand Finance and The Economic Times in 2010. It provides outsourced research and development, infrastructure outsourcing, business process outsourcing (BPO) and business consulting services. The company operates in three segments: IT Services, IT Products, Consumer Care and Lighting.

Wipro Technologies, the global technology and consulting services division of Indian conglomerate Wipro Limited.

History

During 1970s and 1980s it shifted its focus and began to look into business opportunities in IT and computing industry which was at nascent stages in India at that time. Wipro was the first company which marketed the first indigenous homemade PC from India in 1975. Wipro's entry into the IT business was helped by lack of competition from IBM, which was asked to leave India by the government in 1977, following a dispute over investment and intellectual property. With its name and brand established, in the early 1980s, Wipro began selling through a dealer network and began assembling products made by such well-known companies as Canon, Cisco Systems, Epson, Hewlett-Packard and Sun.

In 1966 Azim Premji, still the majority shareholder as the chairman of the company at the age of 21 and with the passage of time transformed it into one of the largest IT outsourcing services provider of the world.

By 2000, Wipro Technologies emerged as the largest publicly listed software exporter in India and the first software services provider to be assessed at SEI Level 5 in the world.

The company has the following reportable segments:

i) IT Services: IT Services segment provides IT and IT enabled services such as software application development and maintenance, research and development services for hardware and software design, business process outsourcing services etc.

ii) IT Products: IT Products segment sells a range of Wipro personal desktop computers, servers and notebooks.

iii) Consumer Care and lighting: Consumer Care and Lighting segment manufactures, distributes and sells personal care products, baby care products, lighting products, and hydrogenated cooking oils in the Indian and Asian markets.

Diversification

Wipro Infotech is a leading manufacturer of computer hardware and provider of systems integration services in India and the Middle East region. The company's product portfolio includes desktop and notebook PCs, servers, data storage systems, and supercomputers. Its menu of technology services includes application development, data hosting, and technology procurement consulting. As an IT division of Bangalore-based technology services and consumer products conglomerate Wipro Limited, Wipro Infotech maintains offices across India. It also has operations in Australia and Egypt, as well as in Saudi Arabia through a joint venture with DAR Al Riyadh Group.

With its continued advancement in the IT market, Wipro made a foray into residential Internet services market via its joint venture with Royal Dutch Telecom. WeP Peripherals (WeP) came to existence in 2000. Prior to that year, WeP was the peripherals systems division of Wipro Infotech. In 2002, Wipro began with the acquisition of Spectramind. This transaction was completed in 2003 when Wipro acquired 100% stake in the company. Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting was established in 2003. This division acquired the lease rights to Chandrika in the same year. Wipro launched two new products in 2003, Wipro eHelpline, a web based call management software and Wipro eAsset, an IT asset Management tool.

Wipro BPO

Wipro BPO employs over 22,000, of whom 3,150 are at its Hyderabad campus. The planned new recruitments will be from among science and commerce graduates and under-graduates.

The majority of Wipro BPO’s business comes from the US, followed by Europe. The rest of the world contributes only marginally to its top line. The company posted a turnover of $290 million in FY08.

Founded in 2002, Wipro BPO has operations in Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Navi-Mumbai (Belapur) Greater Noida, Mysore and Kochi in India. It also has offices in Shanghai and Cebu in Asia and Curitiba in Brazil and Wroclaw in Poland. It has 44 clients in segments such as banking & capital markets, insurance, travel & hospitality, hi-tech manufacturing, telecom and healthcare.

Social Initiatives

Applying Thought in Schools

Applying Thought in Schools is institutionalized under Brand, Corporate Communication, and Corporate Planning, headed by an executive of the stature of the Vice-President of the company. A key feature of the programme that began in January 2001 is that it is not necessarily IT-linked in its present form. It focuses on primary education and sees this as an intervention in the area of community development.

Through this initiative, Wipro targets to improve the quantitative and qualitative performance of primary school education in not just several private schools but also in a variety of educational institutions of the state/government. The scope of this initiative is wider and includes working towards a 'paradigm shift in the philosophy of education', itself. The approach is very holistic with its roles being perceived as networking, advocating, and intervening to achieve new models of education.

''Approach''

The objective of value-added educational inputs is to change the existing school system in the following ways:

In order to achieve all this, Wipro's Applying Thought works through a number of initiatives such as Teacher Empowerment Program, Parents Empowerment Program, Education Leadership Program, Teacher Training Colleges, etc.

Azim Premji Foundation

Azim Premji Foundation is a not-for-profit organization with a vision to contribute to systemic changes in Indian education that facilitates a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society. Though not directly a part of Wipro, it was set up through the personal contribution of Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro Corporation. The Foundation has the mission to 'transform the lives of millions of children in India by catalysing universalisation of elementary education'. The Foundation has engaged with over 2.5 million children in 20,000 schools across 13 States through a committed workforce of over 250 professionals and hundreds of paid volunteers since it's inception in 2001.

The work of the foundation mainly focuses on the areas:

Wipro Cares,

Wipro Cares was set up in 2003 to create an avenue for tapping existing and new efforts of individual Wiproites volunteering for social development initiatives. The employees voluntarily involve in various social causes in order to help people affected in crisis situations. The social initiatives also include providing education opportunities, health and wellness programs for the needy thus touching every level of society that needs support. The volunteering efforts are both in terms of cash offerings as well as through inputs in other ways.

Wipro Cares is managed by one full-time employee and has approximately 200 volunteers. Wipro offices with 500 or more employees were encouraged to be a part of this initiative, and it is through this mechanism that the volunteer force is identified and has grown. For a total workforce of approximatetly 30,000, this is a small but a significant beginning. The employees also maintain a blog that contains the activities being conducted at different locations by Wipro Cares.

While Applying Thought in Schools and Azim Premji Foundation are concentrating on primary education, Wipro Care is poised to make value-added improvement in the existing Health Care system. The approach is to target improvement of the Primary Health Care system of the government and work to resolve critical issues on a sustainable basis.

Achievements

Wipro was awarded SVG1, the highest rating in ''Stakeholder Value Creation and Governance Practices'' by ICRA, a premier credit rating agency in India and an associate of Moody’s Investor Services of USA.

Wipro was awarded the ''India Manufacturing Excellence Award'' for its factory in Pondicherry in the large enterprises category by ''Frost & Sullivan''.

Wipro was awarded the prestigious ''ASTD BEST'' Awards for 2005 by the ''American Society of Training and Development''.

Wipro's ''Global Command Centre'' won the ''Marico Foundation'' and ''Business World's'' ''Innovation for India Award'' in 2006. The conglomerate was rated as the ''No.1 Network Integrator'' and ''No.1 Network Security Services Provider'' by ''Voice & Data Magazine''.

References

Information provided by Hakim Mouazam Ali Wipro has branch in Powai Mumbai and now running BPO in Jasola, New Delhi too.

External links

Category:BSE Sensex Category:Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Category:Companies established in 1945 Category:Software companies of India Category:Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange Category:Economy of Bangalore Category:Outsourcing companies Category:Business process outsourcing companies of India Category:Companies based in Bangalore Category:International information technology consulting firms Category:Information technology consulting firms of India *