Wipro to train over 100 foreign interns in India

As the spotlight remains fixed on the issue of onsite hiring for IT firms, Wipro is planning ahead in cultivating teams of local business leaders with an Indian ethos. The company is scaling up its "India gateway" programme, through which it gives campus recruits from the UK, Europe, and Africa an opportunity to spend months at a time in its India campuses.

Launched last year, Wipro says the programme has been more successful than anticipated, and this year, over 100 employees across the world are expected to be working here.

"Going forward, the number of local hires abroad will only increase. Management also has to come from local talent more in the future. Keeping that in mind, we felt it was important to have locals immerse themselves in the culture of the company. Having them train here is a great way to do that," says Sourabh Govil, senior vice president - Human Resources, Wipro.
Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/careers/education/Wipro-to-train-over-100-foreign-interns-in-India/articleshow/24702441.cms

Wipro BPO win Best Project with Organizational Impact Award

Wipro  Ltd., a leading Global Information Technology, Consulting and Outsourcing company announced that the American Society for Quality (ASQ) has recognized Wipro BPO for a Six Sigma Project implemented for a customer. The project was recognized by ASQ and voted on by attendees of the 2013 World Conference on Quality and Improvement as Best Project with 'Organizational Impact' at the International Team Excellence Awards, Indianapolis, USA.

The awards recognize and commend the impact of quality on customer relationships. The finalists of the "International Team Excellence Awards" comprised of 32 teams from across the world and global organizations spanning industries including Automobiles, Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, Financial Services & Insurance, Telecom, Military, Energy, Housing and ITeS.

Wipro BPO rated among top global F&A service providers

Software services major Wipro today said its BPO has been rated among the top global Finance and Accounting (F&A) service providers by analyst firm HfS Research.

Wipro BPO has been positioned among the top worldwide Finance and Accounting service providers by HfS Research in its "Blueprint Report on Finance and Accounting BPO", authored by analysts Phil Fersht and Brian Dubiel, the company said in a release.

The report credits Wipro for its long standing reputation for delivering BPO competency particularly in F&A, price competitiveness and solution flexibility along with experience in providing end-to-end support for F&A services.

It also mentions the company's strong passion and capabilities in developing technology platforms to support BPO prowess.

Wipro in a release said: "The report ratings are based on a broad range of stakeholders with specific weightings derived from 1,355 crowd-sourced responses that include buyers, service providers, industry influencers (sourcing advisors), sourcing executive council members and analysts.

Wipro wins large technology outsourcing contract worth Rs 2,900 crore from Citigroup

Wipro has won a large technology outsourcing contract, potentially valued at close to $ 500 million (Rs 2,900 crore) from Citigroup, according to people familiar with the development.

The large contract comes at a time when such multi-hundred-million dollar technology contracts have become few and far between. Large corporations in the United States and Europe have been cautious on technology spending and following a practice of breaking up outsourced contracts into smaller projects, which are given out to multiple service providers.

Wipro wins deal worth $500m from Citigroup

Wipro is said to have won a $500-million (Rs 2,900 crore) outsourcing contract from Citigroup. The win will come as a boost for the Bangalore-based company that has been going through a lean patch.

Wipro will provide application development and maintenance, and infrastructure services for Citi's global operations. The five-year engagement requires Wipro to set up an offshore delivery centre in Bangalore, said sources familiar with the development. When TOI contacted Wipro, the company said it does not comment on market speculation. Citi too declined to comment on what they call market speculation.

Citigroup had called for bids for a $1 billion IT contract. TCS, HCL, Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant were said to have put in bids along with IBM, Accenture, Dell and others for this contract. Citi already has large outsourcing deals going with TCS and Wipro. Wipro had acquired Citi Technology Services for $127 million in 2008. Wipro and Citibank had signed an agreement to take over the operations and management of Citi's data centre in Meerbusch, Germany, a suburb of Dusseldorf, in 2010. Wipro had intended to use the site to support other outsourcing clients too. The Meerbusch centre was Wipro's first data centre facility in Europe and enabled the company to offer a full portfolio of infrastructure management solutions to its global clients. TCS had won a $505 million outsourcing contract from Citigroup to handle their core back office processes and customer transactions in 2008.
Source: TimesOfIndia

Wipro to hire 1,000 employees in Germany over the next three years

IT services major WiproBSE 0.00 % Ltd on Wednesday said it will triple its headcount in Germany by hiring over 1,000 people over the next three years with an aim to expand its operations in the key European nation. According to industry estimates Germany's IT market size stood at around $80 billion last year.

"Wipro plans to triple its employee strength in Germany over the next three years, by hiring over 1,000 professionals," the company said in a release.

At present, the Bangalore-headquartered firm has over 500 employees in Germany, which serve more than 30 clients. It has 145,000 employees across 98 countries as on March 31, 2013.

Source: Economic Times

Rupee fall to cushion wage hike impact

Infosys announced an average increase of 8% for employees in India, while those in other geographies will get an average 3% hike.

Two of the largest Indian information technology (IT) services companies, Infosys and Wipro, have announced annual wage increases this year, the quantum of which are more in line with the industry average. While Infosys said it would give an average rise of eight per cent to its employees in India, Wipro has announced an increment of six-eight per cent.

Infosys usually gives rises to its employees with effect from April every year. In FY13, the company deferred the decision citing tough global economic environment. However, it later revisited the decision and announced a wage hike in October. This year (FY14), though the company management had indicated to restructure the employee compensation with an aim of increasing the fixed component in the salary, it was non-committal on giving a rise.

Apart from India, employees located in other geographies, who were not given wage hike in February this year, will be covered in this cycle, Infosys said in a statement today. They would be given an increase of about three per cent in average. The increments will be effective July 1. However, for its global sales force, the changes will come into effect from May 1.
Source: Business-Standard

Infosys announces wage hike, Wipro follows suit

NR Narayana Murthy has made his first significant move upon returning to Infosys by effecting an unexpected round of wage increases for the company's 1.5 lakh employees. By doing so, analysts said, the Infosys chairman is trying to kill several birds with one stone, displaying tactical finesse that has earned him a reputation as one of India's canniest entrepreneurs.

On Thursday, less than a fortnight after Murthy came back to helm the company, Infosys announced an average increment of 8% for India employees, effective from July 1. For employees outside India, the company said the increments will be 3%, albeit with some riders. The biggest push was reserved for its global sales force which will get a raise of 8% effective May.

Wipro, which announced increments in July last year, also sent a note about an hour after the news from Infosys. It said it is giving an average increment of 6-8% for offshore employees and 2-3% for onsite employees, effective from June 2013. For high-performers, the raise will be in double digits. A Wipro spokeswoman said the emailed note was in response to media queries.

"There have been serious issues with employee motivation levels at Infosys. Wipro rolling out wage hikes on the same day shows that it wants to ensure the company doesn't lose employees to Infosys," said Pradeep Mukerji, president and managing partner at outsourcing advisory firm Avasant. Infosys's populist move — a certain vote-winner among staff — could raise morale, enhance Murthy's stock of goodwill and send out a message to all stakeholders and rivals that the Infosys co-founder is back and means business. "By announcing wage hikes, Infosys wants to calm down anxiety among its employees and stabilize things within the organization. It is a smart move; however, we do not expect more bold moves from Murthy," said Manish Bahl, country manager at Forrester Research. "He will be focused on getting things aligned, talking to clients and creating expertise on the product innovation side." Read more

IT cos like Infosys, HCL Tech, Cognizant, Wipro pamper placement officers for best talent

Once reserved for market analysts and key clients, Indian information technology companies are now pampering college placement officers by taking them on domestic and foreign trips as they seek to hire the best talent from Indian campuses ahead of competition.

Over the years Cognizant has been taking placement officers to cities like Bangkok and Dubai while others have been holding their offsites within their campuses. Infosys has also joined the race this year, although with a modest start in domestic locations.

Indian IT firms depend on campus recruits for a bulk of their hiring every year, making job offers to thousands of students every year. In this financial year for instance, Infosys is hiring over 20,000 students from campus while TCS is hiring over 30,000.

Such events, some analysts say are part of efforts to get the best interview slots when hiring from colleges. Infosys, which insiders say lost out in the talent scramble because it failed to get the socalled "slot zero" has now started Samvaad 2012, where the Bangalore-based firm hosts placement officers in Mysore, Pune, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, and Chandigarh.

Some 310 placement heads from a similar number of engineering institutions across the country are being invited, according to a company spokesperson. Through the event, Infosys seeks to impart skills, including "negotiation skills" to help these placement officers in their current roles.

Wipro Technologies eyes $3.5-billion services deals

Information technology services provider Wipro Technologies is pursuing contracts worth around $3.5 billion, senior management of the company told investors during a recent road show in Europe.

The Bangalore-based company is pursuing 15 $100-million deals and another 40 deals worth at least $50 million each.

Selective disclosure to groups of investors is seen a pro-active effort by firm, which underwent a management restructuring almost a year ago, to instill confidence among the investors community.

Wipro eyeing deals worth $3.5bn

Information technology services provider Wipro Technologies is pursuing contracts worth around $3.5 billion, senior management of the company told investors during a recent road show in Europe.

The Bangalore-based company is pursuing 15 $100-million deals and another 40 deals worth at least $50 million each.

Selective disclosure to groups of investors is seen a pro-active effort by firm, which underwent a management restructuring almost a year ago, to instill confidence among the investors community.

Wipro merges two offshore offices with itself

The the third largest IT exporter Wipro today said "Indian branch offices" of the two overseas subsidiaries-- Wipro Networks Singapore and Cyprus-based WM NetServ-- stood merged with the company.

The two branch offices of the subsidiaries merged with the company following filing of e-form along with certified copies of orders of the Karnataka High Court with the respective offices of the Registrar of Companies, Wipro informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Indian branch offices of the two overseas subsidiary companies of Wipro filed the form on March 26, 2010 for making amalgamation effective from April 1, 2010, it said.

Wipro Networks provides communication solutions that include consulting, voice, data and converged solutions and managed services.

WMNetServ is a managed network telecommunications services provider. In July 2006, Wipro and Motorola formed it as a joint venture to deliver world-class capabilities in managed services to public and private network customers.

The joint venture was formed to deliver outsourced telecom services to help customers focus on their core business and gain access to capabilities not available internally.

Wipro expands its operations in Australia, opens development centre

In a bid to expand operations, India's leading software company Wipro today opened its new Australian Development Centre here.

Victorian premier John Brumby officially opened the centre and said it added to the state's impressive track record in attracting investment.

"We are working hard to attract investment from around the world and create thousands of Victorian jobs," Brumby said adding "Victoria is a great place to invest, with a growing economy, a highly skilled workforce, one of the most attractive lifestyles in the world, a competitive tax system and a supportive government."

Brumby said the opening has followed a number of Information and Communication Technologies companies choosing to expand their Victorian operations this year, including Kovair, Attra, Infosys, and BIT - creating 210 Victorian jobs.

Wipro's Australian Development Centre will provide consulting, software development, testing and business process services to domestic and global companies in Australia.

In a year, Wipro has grown its number of Australian employees from 450 to 700 with more than half of these based in Victoria.

Rajat Mathur, head of Sales and Operations for Wipro Asia Pacific, said the company was extremely pleased to be increasing its investment in Australia by establishing this new centre in Melbourne.

"Wipro's Melbourne operations will play an integral role in the company's expansion into Australia. We enjoy a good deal of business success in Australia, as Australian industry demonstrates a continued appetite for our global service delivery model," Mathur said.

"We chose Melbourne for its business environment, ready talent pool and excellent infrastructure - this combination of support and talent is what we look for in a strategic business location" he added.

The opening follows visits to the company's Indian offices by Brumby in September last year and ICT Minister John Lenders in February this year.

Lenders said the announcement was further evidence of the Victorian Government working closely with the world's best ICT companies to create highly skilled jobs in the sector.

"We are providing strong leadership to create skilled jobs in Victoria and to keep our state at the forefront of new technology," Lenders said.

Victoria is home to a very strong ICT industry sector and with over 84,000 employees, accounted for more than a third of Australia's ICT services, products and revenue, Brumby said.

Wipro starts probe into $4 million fraud

Embezzlement by employees is seen to be a common phenomenon among Indian companies. And some say even the $4 million that a Wipro employee is said to have embezzled is a relatively ordinary figure.

Wipro is now instituting a high-level internal probe, and is said to have even mandated Ernst & Young to verify the audited accounts. Experts say the reason for such frauds typically is lax controls.

Kashi Memani, former chairman and managing partner of Ernst and Young India, said such frauds happen when a company does not conduct regular internal audits, do not have in place a tight set of internal controls and most importantly, when they decentralize the power of checks and balances to people down in the hierarchy.

"It is very important for companies to change the set of people who have access to accounts on a regular basis. But, one must be careful not to change people either too soon or wait for too long. Many a time people who have for long earned the company's trust of handling accounts, tend to misuse this trust," Memani said.

Several of these factors appear relevant in Wipro's case. The embezzler, one Anoop Kumar Agarwal, who committed suicide last December in Bangalore, is said to have joined the company in 2006 and later promoted as an assistant manager in the finance department. Agarwal, reports say, used stolen passwords to transfer money into his personal account.
Source: EconomicTimes

Mega Deals: $1 billion outsourcing contracts may come to India

Large outsourcing contracts worth up to $1 billion look set for a comeback this year, as companies from segments like retail, banking, telecom and utilities, apart from government bodies, seek to cope with renewed demand for their services and also lower their operational expenses.

Outsourcing experts and industry officials told ET last week that auto customers too are looking to award large contracts for managing their business and IT systems this year. British Petroleum’s IT contract worth $1.5 billion awarded to Indian vendors TCS, Infosys and Wipro early this year was one such mega deal.
Continue reading on EconomicTimes

TCS, Wipro to hire 37,500 employees

With improving business sentiment and revival in IT spends, hiring seems to be back in full swing at software firm TCS and Wipro. Tata Consultancy Services, the country's largest software exporter by revenue plans to hire 30,000 employees in the financial year 2010-2011. Wipro plans to add 7,500 people in the next two quarters.

Wipro handed out salary increments to all its employees. With effect from February 1, employees got a pay hike in the 8% to 12% range with some even getting a 15% increase.

Infosys had given a single-digit increment in October. It had announced an across-the-board raise and promotions with effect from October 1, 2009.

TCS CEO and MD N Chandrasekaran said, "China is a tough market for IT firms and the company was seeing business opportunity in Europe." The company is currently seeing an 8-10% growth in revenue from domestic operations and is eyeing a double-digit growth in the next two years.

Chandrasekaran said the company had signed a few large deals as well as a number of smaller ones.
"The financial services sector will drive growth. We expect good growth from retail, pharma and utilities," he said.

The company, however, expects a lesser growth from verticals such as telecom and manufacturing.

Chandrasekaran said the company will hike salaries of its employees in the coming fiscal, but did not give details. TCS, has not hiked wages in the current fiscal, but employees have received 150 per cent VA payouts in two consecutive quarters -- Q2 and Q3 of FY'10.

"We are on a path to hire 1,000 people. We have already hired 300," he said, replying to a query on hiring plans for the current fiscal. In Q3 of FY-10, TCS had made 7,692 net additions, compared with a net addition of 320 in the previous quarter.

Asked about the extent to which India would be affected by the US move to slash tax-breaks to outsourcers, Chandrasekaran said the matter is not an immediate concern.

US president Barack Obama last month had said his administration would "slash the tax-breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas" and instead "give those tax-breaks to companies that create jobs in the country," which sent shivers down the industry's spine.

This is because the US accounts for almost 60 per cent of the IT exports from the country are to that market.

"The regulatory changes with regard to employment and outsourcing in any part of the world is something that we have to watch every day. You need to see how to align to that, but because of this, if you ask me if there is an immediate concern, then the answer is no," Chandrasekaran said.

Wipro hikes salary, good news for IT

The smiles are back in Silicon Plateau. Wipro has just handed out salary increments to all its employees. With effect from February 1, employees will get a pay hike in the 8% to 12% range with some even getting a 15% increase.

Such a hike comes after a long dark tunnel — of 12 to 18 months — when employees went through a difficult period of layoffs, uncertainty, additional work loads, and salary freeze. A Wipro employee said she received the increment letter which indicated a 12% increase in salary. Several other employees also said they had received increment mails.

Wipro's head of HR Pratik Kumar, however, declined to talk about details. "Hikes are in the pipeline. We mentioned it during our third quarter financial results. We'll make a further announcement regarding the hike and percentage etc. only in February," he said.

A couple of mid-tier Wipro executives said the hike is a morale booster. "I was seriously exploring a job change. Now that I'm getting a hike close to 15%, I guess I should stay back," a senior project manager said.

Infosys had given a single-digit increment in October. It had announced an across-the-board raise and promotions with effect from October 1, 2009. Domestic salaries went up by 8% while onsite pay rose by 2%. "During the October-December quarter, our variable pay has been 100%, against 92% in the previous quarter. We'll be thinking of a further salary hike only in April 2010," said its HR head T V Mohandas Pai.

Wipro in outsourcing deal with BAT

No. 3 Indian software-services firm Wipro Ltd said on Wednesday it signed a multi-year outsourcing deal with British American Tobacco Plc, the world's second-biggest cigarette maker.

Wipro will help British American Tobacco's application support services for global business operations, the company said in a statement. Financial details were not disclosed.

Wipro to give salary hike

India's third largest software exporter Wipro said it would hike salaries across the board this quarter, but did not indicate quantum.

According to Pratik Kumar, corporate vice president, human resources, the salary hike will be given out in February. He added, “The hike will be according to the industry standards.”

Wipro beat estimates with a 19 percent rise in December quarter profit and projected growth as a global economic recovery boosts demand for outsourcing services and eases pressure on fees.

New York-listed Wipro expects its IT services revenue to rise 3.6-5.4 percent in January-March from the preceding quarter to $1.16-$1.18 billion, after it posted a 4.9 percent sequential rise in the latest quarter.

The company also announced that it will hire people from campuses. Some 7,500 people hired previously are expected to join in Q4 and early next quarter.

Last week Tata Consultancy Services also announced that it expects to increase wages in the 2011 financial year.

TCS global head of HR Ajoy Mukherjee said the company has decided to give salary increments during financial year ending March 2011, although the exact quantum of hike is yet to be decided.

“There definitely will be a wage hike but the quantum is not finalised. We are considering three options,” Mukherjee said. While giving the hikes, the company will maintain the salary structure it moved to in FY10, which consists of a quarterly variable component and an annual variable component.

However, the company so far has no plans to increase the salaries of junior recruits.

Wipro to cut jobs in Finland

Wipro Ltd, India's No. 3 software exporter, said that it is planning to restructure some part of its Finland operations and the move could impact a maximum of 85 people.

The company's IT unit, which employs 300 people in Finland, will start a consultation process with the staff representatives as part of the restructuring of its telecom research and development operations there.

"After carefully considering all possible options, the company has decided to enter into a negotiation process with the employees given the challenging industry situation in telecom R&D," it said in a statement.