Reprioritization of biz strategy in focus

Bengaluru: The strategic rejig by Wipro under the leadership of its new chief executive officer (CEO) Thierry Delaporte is a step in the right direction, but execution holds the key to get the desired outcomes.According to analysts, a simplified operating model, strengthening of sales muscle, and focus on large deals that have potential to accelerate the revenue growth of Wipro. Also, reprioritisation of Wipro with a focus on a few verticals in Europe and Middle East, can augur well for the IT firm's growth.

"Under the new leadership, the changes proposed by Wipro are in the right direction. Especially, emphasis on large deals, client mining, simplification of operating structure with lesser number of P&L heads, and focus on increasing the share of digital revenue have the potential to take the company in its growth phase," said Sanjeev Hota, head (research) at Sharekhan, a Mumbai-based brokerage firm.

"However, we have to wait and watch that how the company executes on these key strategies, which will determine the outcome," he added.

In the recent analyst meet, Wipro's new CEO presented a blueprint for driving the future growth in the Bengaluru-headquartered company, which has not been able to match revenue growth numbers with its bigger peers during past years. With Delaporte at the helm, the IT firm is now planning to take a number of steps- both organisational and market-related issues in order to accelerate growth prospects.

From organisation perspective, Wipro proposes to have a simplified organisation structure by collapsing 25 P&L heads into four P&L. The Azim Premji-promoted firm will now have four strategic market units- Americas 1, Americas 2, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific & Middle East and Africa- with specific sector focus.

In its bid to win more large deals, the IT firm has set up a large deal team to chase these outsourcing contracts. It also plans to create a new position as chief growth officer who will be responsible for the execution of the company's growth plans. For higher client mining, Wipro will appoint a global account executive (GAE) in each large customer.

"Wipro does business model rejig following what Capgemini started a couple of years back and Accenture announced this year. This is mainly done for two reasons. Firstly, growth for large firms is coming from penetrating new geographies and maximising revenue from key customers. For this, the company needs to come out of the vertical and service line silos," said Pareekh Jain, an IT outsourcing advisor and founder of Pareekh Consulting in his LinkedIn post.