Wipro has carved its digital business into a separate service line and is aiming for USD 1 billion revenue from this stream in the next three years. However, margins will continue to remain lower. Speaking to CNBC-TV18’s Wipro's new digital head Rajan Kohli said the company will be investing in interaction, integration and insight.
Below is the transcript of Rajan Kohli's interview with Poornima Murali on CNBC-TV18.
Q: Explain more about your strategies?
A: While the strategy is the same the execution of this is going to be very different. We have been set up as a unit outside of the traditional Wipro service lines and business unit set up. It means that we will get a lot of investment, we will get a lot of focus and also we have the liberty to set practices which help us win in this space which is agile, multifaceted, experiment fast, learn fast which would be very difficult to do with the structures that we have in place in the traditional Wipro business.
Q: Are you on track to meet the goal?
A: There is so much business that is moving towards the digital space and the definition of digital is also ever expanding. So I don’t doubt the fact that it will be a top three service lines within Wipro in three years time. And also the growth may not be linear. It will follow a slightly different trajectory but absolutely we are on track to meet that goal.
So I hate to put a number there but it will be a significant investment. Also the USD 100 million corporate venture capital fund that we have created, I believe that the majority of that investment will also go towards start ups that are more digitally focused.
Q: Tell us more about this unit?
A: It has been set up as a separate unit because TK Kurien wants to focus disproportionately higher amount of energy and focus on this because to him and this industry digital is the future. As I said, investment is flowing into these systems of interaction and systems of insight and moving away from systems of record or legacy systems. For Wipro or this industry to win in this space, they have to bet very heavy on digital and win in that space and Wipro intends to win in this space.
Q: Also TK Kurien said it will become the top three service lines in the next three years and also fetch revenue of about USD 1 billion in the next three years. Is Wipro on track to achieve this?
A: I am sure that TK will keep moving the post for us and I do think that it should be the top three service lines in three years because as I said there is so much business that is moving towards the digital space and the definition of digital is also ever expanding. So I don’t doubt the fact that it will be the top three service lines within Wipro in three years time. And also the growth may not be linear. It will follow a slightly different trajectory but absolutely we are on track to meet that goal.
Q: Talking about acquisitions are you aggressively going to get into acquisitions to grow your digital business to scale up the digital front. What are the geographies that you will be looking at when it comes to acquisitions?
A: We will be looking at acquisitions in areas that I spoke about. It is either to enhance our design and interaction capability or insight capability or deep technology capability in the digital space. From a geography point of view it would be either North America or Europe initially. The corporate venture fund of course will again tend to invest more in US and in India to some extent. So it will also follow the similar geographical patterns as our acquisition.
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