In an exclusive Q&A with Neha Alawadhi, Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte spoke about his company's business, its plans, the attrition problem, and what Wipro is doing to manage its human resources
 "BS Interview: Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte on worrying attrition situation")
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IT major Wipro recently reported crossing the $10-billion mark in annual revenue run rate. While it’s milestone for the company, the present high level of attrition is a worrying sign not only for Wipro but also the entire IT industry and its supply chains. In an exclusive interview with Business Standard’s Neha Alawadhi, Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte spoke about his company’s business, its plans, the attrition problem, and what Wipro is doing to manage its human resources. Here are the highlights of the Q&A:
You have hit the $10-billion annual revenue milestone. How did you reach there? What’s working for you?
- Worked with key clients, invested in relationships
- Invested in strategic areas around cloud, data, engineering, security
- Developed partnership with large technology companies
- Executed our plans pragmatically
- We have an obsessive focus on the market, on growth
- Acquired some strong talent, made strategic acquisitions
What led to the near 10% drop in profit this quarter?
- No drop in margins from last quarter
- Last quarter’s margins included exceptional items
- The cost of new acquisitions needs to be factored in
- We have stabilised the margins despite acquisitions and new pay hike cycle
How do you look at growth going forward?
- Will maintain the focus on organic growth
- But will also continue to do acquisitions
- Expecting a 25% growth this year versus last year
- Small to medium-sized acquisitions
- Will not shy away from good bigger acquisitions, either
How do you feel about the increase in attrition level?
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- Attrition higher than what we’d like it to be
- No comfort in the fact that this is not specific to Wipro
- Working on ways to reduce attrition
- Prepared that it will take some quarters before situation improves
What are the ways in which you are trying to get more people on board?
- We will hire twice as many freshers this year as we did last year
- Will increase it by another 30% next year
- Added 8,000 freshers this quarter, so the trend is positive
- Creating flexible, hybrid work from home-work from office models
- Investing in reskilling employees to increase their market value
What’s the progress on the Wipro full-stride cloud services?
- Growing at over 20% across the board in cloud business
- A third of our pipeline today is cloud-related
- Invested in leadership to manage relationships in partners
- Invested in capabilities and solutions, defined priorities
- Also working on the M&A front
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First Published: Oct 15 2021 | 1:46 PM IST