March 15, 1999
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WIPRO: AZIM H PREMJI Full of Variety " We'd focus our entire brand development effort behind Wipro".
Yet, the company's market capitalisation has zoomed from a paltry Rs 29.9 crore in 1988 to a dizzy Rs 8,500 crore now on a launcher powered by software. The company's books do not differentiate software from its other products, but the sectorwise table gives away the real picture: the software exports income is growing by 51 per cent annually against the overall sales growth of 13 per cent. Software exports contribute Rs 105.7 crore in the overall Rs 159.2 crore profit before tax and interest. Wipro may be a diversified octopus but the strongest arm of the cephalopod is software. And the arm has enviable features. Like quality. In the software trade, the highest quality achievement comes from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) of SEI benchmarks the key elements in an effective software process. Wipro is the only Indian company to hold the sei-cmm Level 5 certification of quality. This certification means, as Wipro Limited Vice-Chairman Ashok Soota explains, that the organisation is at the "optimised level of quality". At that quality level, customers call you instead of you calling them. Premji remains the company's conservative pater familias: "We've no plans to tap the foreign equity markets." But, under the swadeshi glove, there is a competitive and quality-conscious fist made of steel. Not bakery fats. |
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Wipro Limited, the family empire of
Chairman Azim H. Premji, is as old as Independence. It was launched as "Western India
Products", a diversified company making vegetable oil, hair-care soaps and later
bakery fats, baby toiletries and hydraulic cylinders. The corporate headquarters of Wipro
in downtown Bangalore still has a sniff of the old-world soap-and-ghee capitalism, but the
bottom line tells another story. The culture shift perhaps began in 1982 when Wipro
started trading in computers and later on assembling them to become the number one vendor
in the '90s. It is also the market leader in healthcare systems, fluid-power cylinders and
hair-care soaps. And, importantly, Premji, whose family owns most of the corporation's Rs
45.80 crore share capital, is a strong advocate of "Wipro" as an omnibus brand
name, with all its products, from baby soap to software services and products, sheltered
under the same umbrella. 
