Offshore trend irreversible, says Premji

Azim H Premji, chairman of Wipro, has termed business process outsourcing as "an irreversible global trend."

Referring to the initiative by several IT and consulting majors to set up offices in India, he said it "legitimises the global outsourcing model successfully pioneered by the Indian IT companies." He was addressing the ISB (Indian School of Business) community on Friday on the current trends in globalisation.

He was at the ISB as part of the school's Speaker Series, which invites successful industry practitioners to talk to students to enrich their learning experience. The theoretical concepts and frameworks taught in the classroom are supplemented with different perspectives from the real world.

Premji broadly analysed the positive implications of outsourcing for the western world, as well as developing economies. He spoke of the challenges before India, its software and ITES industries, and all professionals.

Responding to a question on how entrepreneurs were created, he said, "by taking risks. You have to have a strong mission and vision. You have to be willing to make sacrifices "� you have to put your neck on the block."

On the quality of ISB products, he said: "Wipro's experience in recruiting people from your school has been very successful, and we will continue to hire from the ISB."