Wipro hiring more locals for overseas operations

With plans to push for more revenues from overseas operations, Wipro
Ltd proposes to add more local hires abroad.

At present, 39 per cent of its employees overseas are local hires, an
official with Wipro said. But it plans to increase that level to about
50 per cent in local geographies over the next few years.

An analyst firm, Janney Montgomery Scott said in its report that on
the sales front too, Wipro – which already gets 50 per cent of its
staff from local geographies – is trying to increase that count to
about 75 per cent. Wipro has about 1.08 lakh employees on its rolls.

Wipro, the report said, wants to hire local talent in the countries it
does business in. A Wipro spokesperson did not give details about the
company's overseas operations stating that their 'silent period' ahead
of their first quarter results had begun. The report said Wipro is
expected to add headcount this year to keep up with the increase in
demand. Attrition rates spiked to 17 per cent (annualised) from 13 per
cent in the most recent quarter. Attrition is expected to climb over
the next few quarters as the demand for talent increases.

The IT firm expects to keep the cost of talent manageable through the
use of its pyramid scheme and plans to hire lower cost freshers to
offset the impact of wage increases and keep the total cost of revenue
consistent as a percentage of overall revenues. The fresher / lateral
recruitment mix is currently 65 per cent: 35 per cent up from 50 per
cent each. Overall, 48 per cent of the company's total employees are
freshers.

The report also pointed out that there are about 1,000 employees who
are in consulting space which is small on a relative basis. For
comparison, Infosys currently has 600 employees in its consulting
practice, between 4,000 and 5,000 overall with consulting functions.
Hence, the challenge is to retain as well as hire more consultants.

The company is also looking to break the linearity between headcount
and revenue growth through cost sharing and reusable IT blocks.
Utilisation rates are expected to be stable in the 71 per cent range
excluding large employee additions.