Wipro expands footprint in S Africa, to hire 1,000

Wipro Technologies is planning to set up a delivery centre in South Africa, having sensed huge opportunities for growth in that country. The proposed move by the IT services business wing of Wipro would create job opportunities for 1,000 professionals in the next three years.

Bangalore-headquartered Wipro already has an office in Johannesburg.

The company today said over 500 employees who are either located in South Africa or in various offshore centres are servicing clients in that country, belonging to industries such as telecommunications, financial services and oil & gas.

“For us,” said T K Kurien, CEO of Wipro’s IT business, “the big markets for growth will be the ones we have not concentrated. He cited Africa as an example. “We are going to set up centres in Africa – both for the back-end and front-end works. As a first step towards that, we are planning to set up a delivery centre in South Africa, and then set up a centre in another country in Africa,” he had told Business Standard in a recent interview.

IT spending in South Africa is projected to reach about $17.4 billion in 2015, from about $10.7 billion in 2011. The largest industries contributing to South Africa’s GDP include financial services, business services and manufacturing. “South Africa’s IT end-user spending as a portion of the real gross domestic product will reach 8.6 per cent in 2013,” said Manoj Punja, senior vice-president and head (focus markets and global sales operations), Wipro Technologies. “This positions the country at the upper-middle level of IT-spender nations within the emerging markets.”

Meanwhile, Wipro has said the company is expecting its revenues from Africa to rise to $30 million in the current financial year, from $13 million last year.

Wipro, he said, was planning to initiate campus recruitment drives and establish training and skills development programmes in South Africa.

This was with the aim of tappinga the large pool of IT-educated graduates available in the country, he added.