Wipro Exec Chairman Rishad Premji endorses CEO Delaporte, says he has full support of the Board

Wipro will invest $1 billion in AI over the next three years.

Wipro Executive Chairman Rishad Premji endorsed Chief Executive Officer Theirry Delaporte during the company's Annual General Meeting on July 12, stating that he has his full support. “Thierry has my full support and the full support of the Board as he takes the company forward," Premji said in response to a question to a shareholder on the company's share price which has fallen and the company's performance.

The statement comes at a crucial time for Wipro as growth is slowing and it expects a degrowth in Q1Fy24, the company has seen a slew of top-deck exits, and it has also spent money on big-ticket acquisitions such as Capco and Rizing.

In response to another shareholder query, Delaporte said their approach to acquisitions is through a strategic lens "to help us accelerate or enrich our capabilities in one of our key areas — whether it is from a market, industry or technology standpoint."

It comes at a particularly difficult time for the industry as well, which is seeing mounting macroeconomic headwinds.

The macroeconomic environment last year was challenging and it continues to remain so, Premji said in his prepared remarks, adding that with the Ukraine war entering its second year and interest rates continuing to remain high, client spending was impacted particularly in the second half of FY23.

“We see that in sectors like banking and financial services and technologies, clients spent more on cost optimization, and less on discretionary spending, especially in the second half of last year. We were well prepared for this change, our strong portfolio of solutions on both sides of the growth as well as on the efficiency side, I believe has helped us react quickly to these developments,” he said. He added that macro uncertainties are showing more and more in discretionary spending.

This was echoed by  Delaporte, who said that the business environment has slowly and gradually weakened.

On Artificial Intelligence, Premji said that as with every emerging technology, AI will impact work personally as well as in social life.

“We are committed to putting strong guardrails and governance models for its usage both internally as well as externally. To us this position of responsibility is an extension of our company's strong moral center and sense of purpose manifested in the soul of the company,” he said.

This remark came soon after the company announced an investment of $1 billion over the next three years into AI, and also that it would train all its employees.

Delaporte said that like every other industry, IT too is undergoing a “seismic shift”

“AI can and will fundamentally change every aspect of business. Anticipating this revolution, we both started investing and building AI capabilities over a decade ago. We have delivered over 2000 global AI engagements during this time. We are already using generative AI for multiple use cases,” he added.

Delaporte added that AI is a technology that will change the way everyone works — whether it is a managing director or a developer.

"Whether you are a managing director managing finance or you are a developer somewhere, AI is a technology that will change the way you work, and you should not be doing yourself tasks that can be delivered by AI tech. If you rope in AI you’ll be able to leverage technology to save time and be more productive and that’s what we are doing with our associates around the world,” he said.

On the demand environment, Delaporte said the backdrop today is uncertain where they are watching the economic headwinds and geopolitical conflicts closely. “We have a very specific strategy for selecting countries where we want to invest and we are restricting investments to those countries where there is stability,” he added.