Steve Hamm on Bangalore Tiger – Wipro




Kamla Bhatt Show show

Summary: (http://kamlashow.com/podcast/wp-content/uploads/SteveHamm-150x128.jpg)Steve Hamm's Bangalore Tiger: How Indian Tech Upstart Wipro Is Rewriting the Rules of Global Competition traces the growth and success of Azim Premji (http://kamlashow.com/podcast/2006/03/09/azim-premji-of-wipro-from-new-york-stock-exchange/) and his company Wipro (http://www.wipro.com/).  Wipro is one of the largest Information Technology (IT) companies of India. Wipro, along with Infosys are the two major IT companies that put Bangalore on the global map, and transformed this once laid-back pensioner's paradise into a hi-tech hub.  Mr. Premji is a low-keyed billionaire,  known for his  frugal ways. Mr. Premji's (http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10068) father founded Western India Products Limited (Wipro) in  1945 in Amalner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalner), Maharashtra. Originally, Wipro manufactured sunflower vegetable oil. In the 1960s Mr. Premji took over the reins of Wipro, after his father's sudden death. At that time he was studying Electric Engineering at Stanford University, which he had to leave unfinished. In the 1980s Mr. Premji steered the company in a new direction - computers and IT services and by the end of 20thc Wipro emerged as one of the top IT companies in India. He also relocated Wipro from Maharashtra to Bangalore, Karnataka, which is where it is currently headquartered. How did he do it? How did Wipro build its Global Delivery Model and Offshore Delivery Centers?  These are the questions that Hamm set out to find in his book. Hamm (https://twitter.com/#!/stevehamm31) was with Businessweek when he wrote the book. He is currently a communication strategist at IBM. You can also listen to my interview with Azim Premji (http://kamlashow.com/podcast/2006/03/09/azim-premji-of-wipro-from-new-york-stock-exchange/) from the New York Stock Exchanged recorded in February in 2006. This podcast was originally published in October 2006 in Podtech.