Wipro expects FY15 to be a better year

Company says integration of various businesses will reap fruit

Wipro, the country’s third largest information technology (IT) services provider, whose first quarter results were negatively impacted due to volatility in the domestic market, said the next financial year would be much better for the company’s India business.

Suresh Senapaty, chief financial officer and executive director, said: “The way we are structured in the current year will allow us to do better in future. A lot of our businesses are getting integrated into single teams from a go-to-market perspective, etc. We have aligned all the verticals into a single delivery organisation under one leadership. This is applicable for Wipro Technologies and Wipro Infotech. This will allow us to get more domain-oriented deals. It will also get us more specific and more annuity business. The year 2013-14 will be a year where we remodel the India business.”

In terms of verticals, only the global media and telecom vertical has been integrated across geographies. As part of the restructuring, all the other verticals will be integrated into single teams.

India and West Asia’s contribution to the company's revenue for the quarter was 8.8 per cent, and the performance of the geography was down by 6.7 per cent, sequentially. IT products, part of the India business unit, was down 14 per cent on a year-on-year basis. The firm said the performance was impacted due to lower capex spending in India. Senapaty said the first quarter was traditionally weak for the India business unit, but this year, the situation was accentuated due to indecision within the government sector, delay in decision-making and added pressure among the telecom players.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the only other one  among the top Indian IT majors to have significant exposure to domestic business. It’s first quarter numbers indicated similar slowness in the domestic business. For TCS, the India region was down 4.6 per cent.

Wipro, which guided for a dollar revenue growth of 2-4 per cent (bullish quarter after several quarters) for the second quarter, is expecting the geography to be better in the next quarter.

“We are positive on growth because India will be back in the second quarter, some of the order wins we have seen in the infrastructure management services space and financial services in the past few month, show growth momentum will be maintained. Moreover, some of the directions and changes we have made are now showing results,” he said.

* Wipro’s Q1 results hit by volatility in the domestic market

* 8.8% India and West Asia’s contribution to the company's revenue for Q1 of FY14

* 6.7% Decline in share of performance of the region in Q1 of FY14 against Q4 of FY13