Wipro plans US expansion, to hire locally

BANGALORE: The twin factors of addressing the market requirements as well hiring talent will see $3 billion IT giant Wipro expanding further in the US with significantly large centres. Wipro Technologies is looking at having around 500 people, hired locally at Atlanta, in two-three years. “We will move very strongly in the direction of hiring people locally,” said Wipro Technologies’ IT practices President Suresh Vaswani.

The Atlanta centre is likely to open in three months. Wipro is also looking at the possibility of having facilities at Raleigh, NC, Austin, Texas and Richmond, Virginia. This could eventually see about 1,000 people being hired locally at these centres. Wipro has over 20 development centres outside India, with over half of them in the US. It has 12,000 people outside India and 7,000 in US alone. Traditionally, the centres are located close to its customers’ site and are manned by people sent from India.

Mr Vaswani said the nature of the IT services business and the newer contracts coming up requires them to have their presence across the globe. This would mean a larger volume of business, which hitherto were not available for the Indian players.

Further, there are certain type of services which will require Wipro to have a significant presence, especially if it addresses security and IP issues. And businesses generally are not in favour of offshoring these services.

The changing market dynamics will also see the requirement of the local people as they are better equipped to deal with business situations in terms of language and culture. According to Vaswani, they would typically hire people from three streams -- engineering graduates, MBAs and experienced IT professionals. Mr Vaswani said this process would also see its headcount at the onsite locations rising by 30-35 per cent every year.

“Ultimately, we deliver a service and it does not matter whether it is from onsite, nearshore or offshore destination,” he remarked. Wipro, besides the presence in the US, has units in Eastern Europe, Mexico, China, Japan and a small centre in Brazil.Wipro will also get an additional 900 people in US following its recent announcement of acquiring Infocrossing.