Speaking to investors virtually on Wipro’s annual Investor Day on Friday, Rishad Premji, Executive Chairman of the company, said that Wipro was opening up its facilities in a phased manner, keeping employee safety and customer needs in mind as they planned this.
“While it is unlikely that we will see a full return to the office, we believe it is essential to reconnect and spend time with each other for ideas and communication to flow more easily and more importantly for culture,” Premji said.
Wipro has said that it will adopt a hybrid model of working in the future, but hasn’t shared any details on how it plans to implement this for its over 220,000 employees globally.
Premji added that he visited customers in the Middle East, US and Europe over the last three to four weeks, with a key takeaway being that every company is now considering itself as a technology company, which is changing the way enterprises think of investing in technology.
“Where earlier the conversation was ‘how do I use technology to reduce costs?’ It has shifted to ‘how can technology help me create and drive more economic value?’ This is a profound shift, one that has changed the whole philosophy of investing in technology from reducing costs and increasing efficiency to driving speed and agility in business outcomes,” Premji said.
Thierry Delaporte, MD and CEO at Wipro, who made his first official visit to India in October after taking over at the helm of the company in July 2020, mirrored this view, adding that the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated transformation timelines for across all industries.
“Digital technologies such as AI, big data, IoT, cloud, have seen widespread adoption and exponential growth. Naturally this means more complexity, more need for expertise, innovation, speed and flexibility. This is where we want to play,” Delaporte told investors and analysts.
Delaporte, who undertook one of the biggest restructurings in Wipro’s 75 year history, said that the company has been able to achieve the goals it had set for itself “and then some more” over the last 12 months, saying that he was very proud with what Wipro has achieved.
He added that he wants Wipro to continue to outpace the market and continue to gain market share, becoming a global leader in the industry. On talent, he said that Wipro wants to attract the best talent not just from the IT services industry, but many other industries as well.
