Wipro fires up US expansion plan
Wipro Technologies is looking at having around 500 people hired locally at Atlanta, US over the next 2-3 years. Suresh Vaswani, President-IT practices, Wipro Technologies said that they would move very strongly in the direction of hiring people locally.
The Atlanta centre is likely to open within the next three months. Wipro Technologies is also looking at the possibility of having facilities at Raleigh, NC, Austin, Texas and Richmond, Virginia. This could eventually see about 1000 people being hired locally at these centres.
Wipro Technologies has over 20 development centres outside India with half of them in the US. It has 12000 people outside India and 7000 in the US alone. Traditionally, the centres are close to its customers’ site and are manned by people sent from India. Mr.Vaswani said that the nature of the IT services business and the new contracts coming up requires them to have their presence accross the globe. This would typically mean a large volume of business, which were hitherto not available for the Indian players.
Further, there are certain types 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 professinals.
Mr.Vaswani said this process would also see its headcount at the onsite locations rising by 30-35% every year. He remarked that they deliver a service and and it does not matter whether it is from onsite, nearshore or offshore destination. Wipro Technologies, besides a presence in the US, has its locations in Eastern Europe, Mexico, China, Japan and a small centre in Brazil.
Mr.Vaswani said it would have similar policies followed in India while hiring engineering graduates in the US and provide them enough opportunities to go for higher studies. Wipro Technologies will also get an additional 900 people in the US following its recent announcement of accuring infocrossing.
