Word: wipro
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Being the Midas of global outsourcing might not make Azim Premji popular in the U.S., but back home in India he's a role model. The story of how the Stanford-educated Premji transformed Wipro, his family's vegetable-oil business, into one of the world's most important outsourcing companies (total employees: 27,200) is already part of Indian business folklore. A growing number of U.S. and European firms rely on the Bangalore-based Wipro to handle their software needs, keep their databases and computer networks up and running, and answer calls from customers. That has made Premji...
Premji is a new kind of Indian plutocrat. He flies economy class and seems happiest when hiking, reading or discussing the foundation he has set up to promote primary education. And he defends India's outsourcing industry: Wipro and its peers help U.S. firms grow by keeping their costs low and raising their productivity, says Premji. "And if American companies don't grow," he points out, "they don't create jobs." --By Aravind Adiga
...recovery. It jumped 60% in 2003 compared with the year before, according to the research magazine Dataquest, as corporations used some of their profits (not to mention tax breaks) to expand overseas hiring. That translates to 140,000 jobs outsourced to India last year. Vivek Paul, president of Wipro, one of India's leading outsourcing companies (it handles voice and data processing for Delta Airlines, for instance), says its service business grew 50% in the last quarter of 2003. "Companies that are emerging from the slowdown are beginning to invest some of that in India," he says. John McCarthy, author...
...economic party like this one has its hangovers, such as BOSS, or burnout stress syndrome, another Valley-like feature now found in Bangalore. When Ranit Bhalla, 25, a software engineer, joined tech giant Wipro four years ago, the work was so intense he often found himself sleeping and even bathing at the office. "For most of us who pushed hard to get ahead, we lived, ate and breathed our jobs," he says. After six months of 16-hour workdays, 3 a.m. dinners and gastric problems, his exhausted body finally gave out. He spent 15 days in a hospital and then...
...help alleviate stress, Wipro and other IT firms have hired dietitians and yoga and meditation teachers. But the outsourcing industry has a 60% rate of employee turnover per year. "I work hard, but this is no life," says Kaushik. Her solution: "I'm going to quit soon." It's a luxury most Indians would never have dreamed of. --By Sara Rajan/New Delhi