Internal rejig may bode well for Wipro

This time, the insiders in Wipro are being promoted. This is the advantage of having somebody from inside on the top. These new appointments are not coming from outside. They should continue to do this as it will not create any cultural challenges - Pareekh Jain, founder, Pareekh Consulting, tells Bizz Buzz

Bengaluru: Wipro’s move to promote insiders to top management jobs under the new CEO is likely to benefit the company through improving employee morale and performance. According to experts, such strategy is different from Wipro’s previous CEO, Thierry Delaporte, who brought in several leaders from outside to accelerate growth. Wipro appointed Srinivas Pallia last month as its new CEO, who was with the company for three decades and headed the ‘Americas 1’ before taking over the role of Chief Executive. With such appointment, the IT firm has indicated that it is relying more on internal candidate than on outsiders.

After Pallia took charge of the top office, Wipro appointed Malay Joshi, a long-timer with over three decades in the company, as the CEO of Americas 1. The Bengaluru-headquartered company appointed Hari Shetty, another Wipro veteran as chief strategist and sales excellence officer earlier.

“This time, the insiders in Wipro are being promoted. This is the advantage of having somebody from inside on the top. These new appointments are not coming from outside. The good thing is the company is promoting internally. They should continue to do this as it will not create any cultural challenges. So, this leadership churn is positive as internal candidates are promoted,” Pareekh Jain, an IT outsourcing advisor & Founder of Pareekh Consulting, told Bizz Buzz.

On recent resignations of some top leaders, he said that such churn is expected when leadership transition happens.

“Many of the leaders, who left recently, were appointed during the previous CEO’s time and several of them were hired externally. During any leadership transition, people will leave,” Jain added.

After the new CEO took over, two former Capgemini executives and Delaporte’s hires - chief operating officer, Amit Choudhary and Anis Chenchah, CEO of APMEA - had left the company. Wipro appointed Vinay Firake, who is another veteran as the CEO of APMEA.

“Top heavy people are moving out of Wipro. It will support its operating margin profile,” said an industry source.

Wipro has been trying to accelerate revenue growth after the company underperformed under its previous CEO. According to analysts, the company has to improve its execution capabilities, bag more large deals, improve its technology capabilities apart from raising the morale of employees to get back its industry-leading position in key verticals.

Under the new CEO, the company now is promoting internal candidates to improve employee productivity.

“The new CEO may not take any drastic organisational reforms and is likely to focus in stabilising the operations and growth. This is likely to work in favour of the company,” another source said.