SAIC reconfirms growth strategy in other energy verticals.

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) said it has completed the sale of its operations focused on providing specialized information technology (IT) services to oil and gas companies to Wipro Ltd.

The operations sold include SAIC’s US-based oil and gas IT services business, along with subsidiaries located in the United Kingdom (SAIC Ltd.), France (Science Applications International, Europe S.A.R.L.), and India (SAIC India Private Ltd). It is expected that SAIC’s subsidiary in the Middle East (SAIC Gulf LLC) will transfer to Wipro when certain regulatory approvals have been received. As part of the sale, approximately 1,450 employees will join Wipro from SAIC’s Health, Energy, and Civil Solutions Group led by Joe Craver.

“With Wipro, the operations sold will have an owner with a strategic focus in multinational commercial oil and gas IT services and a significant footprint, which will enable them to maximize the value of this profitable business,” said Craver. “SAIC remains committed to our strategic growth areas we have identified in the energy sector, including smart grid, renewable energy implementation, and energy efficiency.”

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

The operations being sold comprise SAIC’s US oil and gas IT services business along with subsidiaries located in the United Kingdom (SAIC Limited), France (Science Applications International, Europe S.A.R.L.), India (SAIC India Private Ltd) and the Middle East (SAIC Gulf LLC), all of which are predominantly focused on the oil and gas market. These operations employ approximately 1,450 persons.

“The sale of these operations will enable SAIC to better focus on our strategic growth areas, including market segments in the energy sector, such as smart grid, renewable energy implementation, and energy efficiency, where we have successfully built our business through organic growth and acquisitions,” said Walt Havenstein, SAIC chief executive officer. “To grow our oil and gas IT services business would have required investments in areas outside our strategic focus, including increasing our off-shore capabilities. Wipro is ideally suited to maximize the value of this profitable business. This transaction will provide the best result for the employees and customers of these operations.”

Joe Craver, president of SAIC’s Health, Energy, and Civil Solutions Group, said, “We’ve consolidated all commercial utility information and technology capabilities together with our capabilities in energy engineering and utility consulting to comprehensively address the increasing technical, regulatory and business challenges associated with improving the security, reliability and efficiency of our nation’s energy delivery systems.”

Source:  Top-Consultant

Wipro Limited has won the Special Recognition award for Excellence in Gender Inclusivity – Best IT Services and Product Company from NASSCOM.

Wipro won the award for its innovative and extensive programmes aimed at leveraging diversity through effective leadership, engagement and accountability. “We have matured immensely in the area of Gender Diversity and Inclusiveness. We have a structured program to increase the proportion of women candidates we interview as well as improve the retention of women employees through their life-stages. Our life-stage approach focuses on providing women the exposure, flexibility and empowerment across the various life-stages that they go through. All Wiproites deserve kudos for this recognition from NASSCOM,” said Suresh Vaswani, Joint CEO – IT Business and Member of board, Wipro Ltd. Suresh is also the ‘Diversity Champion’ at Wipro.

Wipro’s initiatives in diversity are spread across the Employee’s Life Cycle, the Support System within the organization and Governance, touching various aspects under each area that help in enhancing the life of the employee inside Wipro and outside. Wipro’s Diversity council is a 14-member council formed with the objective of creating a dynamic and powerful ‘socio-business network’ which fosters a sensitive and equal-opportunity environment that allows every individual to realize their fullest potential.

In the past, Wipro has been counted among the top 5 finalists for Stevie Awards – Women Helping Women in Organizations; and has won the 2010 Diversity Council Award for outstanding work in the area of Gender Diversity and Inclusion. Today, Wipro has over 18000 women employees including some in global leadership roles.

NASSCOM Corporate Awards for Excellence in Gender Inclusivity is the first award in India that encourages, recognises and honours IT and BPO organisations that have implemented policies and practices for Diversity and Inclusivity and enabled women to contribute to the success of the enterprise at all levels in the organization. The awards serve in supporting our industry-wide mission of elevating women leaders and creating a culture in which women employees are supported and encouraged to seek/achieve their fullest potential. The awards emphasise that embracing inclusivity can boost creativity, innovation and the organisation’s bottom line. This would help employers build workplace cultures that are inclusive for women.

Source:  Top-Consultant News

Wipro BPO, the Business Process Outsourcing arm of Wipro Technologies, has been recognized as the ‘Company of the Year’ in the ‘International’ category, at the ‘BPO Industry Awards 2010′, organized by Economictimes.com, the online portal of India’s largest circulated financial daily, in a ceremony held in New Delhi on October 27th.

The BPO division of Wipro Technologies is one of the largest BPO service providers on a global delivery platform. Wipro BPO provides a broad spectrum of services across CRM, Back Office Transaction Processing, Industry Specific Solutions and BPO Consulting.

Commenting on the award, Ashutosh Vaidya, Sr. Vice President and Head, Wipro BPO, said, “We are delighted to receive this recognition. This award is testimony to Wipro BPO’s proven track record of partnering with client organizations to build transformation programs that deliver business value beyond labour arbitrage.”

Wipro BPO has made rapid progress in the last few years extending the delivery presence to many countries including Brazil, Canada, Japan and New Zealand. Starting with two international locations in 2007, we have grown to twenty locations in 2010. Today, the talent pool at Wipro BPO spans 27 nationalities and provides service to customers in 22 global languages.

The BPO Industry Awards 2010 were instituted by Economictimes.com, in association with QAI, a leading consulting and workforce development organization, to reward professionals and organizations for their superlative achievements in the field of Business Process Outsourcing.

The members of the jury included prominent industry leaders like Raman Roy, Chairman & Managing Director, Quatrro BPO Solutions (P) Ltd, Pradeep Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of CyberMedia and T K Arun, Editor-Delhi, The Economic Times.

Source:  Top-Consultant

This collaboration will achieve the critical task of separation of IT operations from Electricity North West’s current service arrangement. Electricity North West owns operates and maintains the electricity distribution network throughout the North West of England.

Wipro will set-up new data Centres and configure virtualized and high availability infrastructure, migrate and upgrade, where necessary, all applications supporting the Electricity North West business. Wipro will also leverage its global remote infrastructure management to provide a fully managed IT Services based on the ITIL v3 Service Integration model.

Andy Funnell, CIO, Electricity North West said “We believe Wipro’s demonstration of a strong industry competency, a mature global delivery model, alignment with our near-term and long-term objectives and a compelling value proposition made Wipro the supplier of our choice to enable IT separation and support our business strategy over a five year horizon.”

Anand Padmanabhan, Senior VP and Head – Energy & Utilities, Wipro Technologies said “We are privileged to partner with Electricity North West on their strategic journey of IT separation. This opportunity extends our footprint in the UK Energy and Utilities industry and positions us as a partner of choice on engagements involving Transformation and end-to-end Managed Services. This deal underscores Wipro’s leadership position in the Energy and Utilities space in the UK market.”

Source:  Top-Consultant

Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro, has entered into a co-innovation agreement with SAP AG to develop and deliver sustainability performance management and energy management solutions to enterprise customers globally. The goal is to empower customers to drive a greener footprint while enhancing their bottom line.

Wipro and SAP will work together to implement SAP solutions for sustainability — including the SAP Carbon Impact on-demand solution and the SAP BusinessObjects Sustainability Performance Management and SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management (SAP EHS Management) applications — with “green” IT services from Wipro.

The resulting solutions will reduce compliance costs and business risk in the face of proliferating local, regional and global regulation in the areas of people, health and safety; product safety and stewardship; and environmental compliance. The solutions will employ best practices in sustainability performance management, including risk management and strategy management, and engage stakeholders with visible and accessible analytics to protect and enhance brand value, market share, and market capitalization.

Wipro, an SAP services partner and a pioneer in the field of sustainability consulting services, helps clients to create ecologically sustainable enterprises. Wipro offers “green” IT services related to strategy and assessment, planning and implementation. This includes formulating an overall approach to green IT, including ROI modeling and quick-win roadmaps, as well as implementing specific solutions for virtualization, consolidation, data center design and architecture, and non-IT solutions such as power and cooling management.

“Wipro has significant expertise in the domain of sustainability, especially in the areas of energy management and sustainability reporting,” said Tobias Dosch, senior vice president, Development, On-demand Sustainability Solutions, SAP. “By collaborating with them to develop and deliver sustainability performance management and energy management solutions, we can help provide even greater value to customers. These planned solutions will help our customers meet their sustainability goals while achieving business benefits.”

“Companies need and want a consistent and integrated business process to address sustainability initiatives,” said Sangita Singh, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Application Services, Wipro Technologies. “The agreement underscores Wipro’s commitment to offer its clients sustainability solutions, helping them create ecologically sustainable enterprises. We are working closely with SAP to co-innovate on the development and deployment of sustainability solutions.”

Source: Top-Consultant

Wipro Q4 profit grows 21% year-on-year

Bangalore-based Wipro reported net income of 12.1 billion rupees ($271.6 million) in the three months ended March 31, from 10 billion rupees a year earlier.

The company’s fourth-quarter sales climbed 8.2 percent to 69.8 billion rupees.

Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro, commenting on the results said: “We have seen another strong quarter of broad based, volume led growth. We saw good recovery in our challenged verticals of Technology and Telecom. The business environment is returning to normal.”

For April-June, Wipro expects IT services revenue between $1.19 billion to $1.215 billion, compared with $1.166 billion in January-March.

Suresh Senapaty, Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer of Wipro, said: “We had a satisfying quarter. We delivered close to the upper end of our guidance with revenues of $1,180 million in constant currency. We have driven up margins by 60 basis points despite headwinds of wage increases, rupee appreciation and the impact of cross currency.”

Source: Top-Consultant