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| Type | Public (NYSE: WIT) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1945 (Pre Independence) |
| Headquarters |  Bangalore |
| Key people | Azim Premji, Suresh Vaswani, Girish S. Paranjpe |
| Industry | Information technology services |
| Revenue | ▲$5.0 billion (2008) USD |
| Net income | ▲$677 million (2007) USD |
| Employees | 100,000+ (2008) |
| Website | www.wipro.com |
Wipro Technologies (NYSE: WIT) is an information technology service company established in India in 1980. It actually has its roots in 1947, as a small vegetable oil company from an old mill founded by Azim Premji's father. With his sudden demise in 1966 Azim, a graduate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, USA, took on the mantle of leadership at the age of 21. He repositioned it and created (Western India Vegetable Products Ltd) Wipro Ltd in 1966 into a fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company that was then a $2 million hydrogenated cooking oils/fat company, laundry soap, wax and tin containers and later set up Wipro Fluid Power to manufacture hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders in 1975. Even as Wipro made good money, Premji continued to look for new opportunities.
In 1977, India's socialist government asked IBM to leave the country. Premji decided to get into computer hardware. In 1979, he began developing his own computer and in 1981, started selling the finished machine -- the first in a string of products that would make Wipro, India's top-selling computer maker for two decades. The company licensed technology from Sentinel Computers in the United States and began building India's first mini-computers. Premji hired managers who were computer illiterate, and strong on business experience. They learnt quickly about technology and made hardware an extremely profitable venture. It was only a matter of time before Wipro engineers started developing software packages that were not available off-the-shelf at that time, for hardware customers. This diversified into the IT business in 1980 and subsequently invented the first Indian 8086 chip. In 1992 a lighting business was established and by 2000 listed Wipro Ltd ADRs on New York Stock Exchange.
Today it has emerged as a multi business and multi location corporate entity. Its businesses range from Consumer Products, Infrastructure Engineering to specialized IT Products & Services. Recently, Wipro had focused on building its enterprise applications business. Wipro realised that global giants who had installed expensive packages like Oracle and SAP wanted to get more out of their investments. American consultancy firms typically charged $125-130 per hour for this while Indian companies did it for $75-80 per hour. It is the global IT services arm of Wipro Limited (in operation since 1945, incorporated 1946). It is headquartered in Bangalore and is the third largest IT services company in Indiacitation needed. It has more than 95,675 employees as of June 30, 2008, including its business process outsourcing (BPO) arm which it acquired in 2002.[1]
Wipro Technologies has over 300 customers across U.S., Europe and Japan including 50 of the Fortune 500 companies. Some of its customers are Nortel, Boeing, BP, Cisco, Ericsson, IBM, Microsoft, Prudential, Seagate, Sony, HP, Windriver, Airbus, Toshiba, Windstream Communications, Dun and Bradstreet and Wal-MartSome of Wipro’s clients in the middle east also include state companies Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority, Metal, Dubai eGovernment, Qatar Petroleum, Bahraini Saudi Bank, Future Communications Company, Kuwait, Doha Bank, PetroRabigh, SASREF and Saudi Polyolefins Company.citation needed It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is part of its TMT (technology media telecom) index testingcitation needed.
With revenue in the excess of US $5 billion, Wipro is one of India's major IT companies. Wipro Technologies has been assessed at Level 5 of People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) under the Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University certification process and it's the first company in the world to win this certification. Wipro is the first SEI CMM Level 5 certified IT Services Company operating in the global market. The Wipro Employee Stock Option Plan (WESOP) allows employees to share in the companies success. It has dedicated development centers and offices across India, (Headquartered at Bangalore, the company has operations in Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Gurgaon.) Europe, (Romania), Egypt, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific. The current Chairman, Managing Director and majority stake owner is Azim Premji, who has headed the software and hardware divisions since Wipro's inception.
Examples of Wipro's product design work include developing an Internet-browsing phone for a Japanese telecom company in 1998, helping chipmaker Texas Instruments produce digital signal processing software, and creating an automotive display unit for Italian manufacturer Magneti Marelli that combined functions including cell phone capability, global position system technology, a navigation system and a CD player.citation needed
External links
- Official website
- Wipro Corporate Official Site
- Wipro Infotech Official Site
- Wipro Businesses
- Wipro company overview - Reuters
- [1] Wipro's Accounting Policies
- Wipro Limited financial overview at Google Finance
- Wipro company profile at Businessweek
- [2] Wipro provides consultancy to Friends Provident.
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