With shift to digital, demand for talent will outstrip supply: Rishad Premji

Rishad Premji

As businesses across the world shift to digital, demand for talent will outpace supply and become a key dependency for growth, Wipro chairman Rishad A Premji has said.

War for talent is a key theme playing out in the technology sector and IT firms have been vocal about it. Wipro recently announced it was rolling out salary hikes for 80 percent of its workforce effective September 2021.

“Technology is often at the forefront of economic recovery, but especially so now, as the pandemic precipitated structural changes across industries and challenged established ways of working ," Premji said in a letter to shareholders in the company's FY21 annual report.

"So, whether it is digital commerce, online education, or telemedicine, technology-enabled business models have emerged across the board, with cloud technology as the cornerstone of this transformation."

This shift, he said, would result in huge demand for tech talents that would outweigh the supply and would be a key factor in driving growth.

“Already we see new delivery models, such as ‘work from anywhere’ and ‘crowdsourcing’, become the mainstay. We expect virtual, remote, community-based, and distributed work models to be the future of work,” he said.

Wipro company employs 1.9 lakh people and 3 percent of the employees are working from office.

Over the last six months, Wipro has seen significant changes under the leadership of Thierry Delaporte. “Early last year, we set out to make the first bold change, embracing the direction set by our new CEO & Managing Director, Thierry Delaporte. The Board and I cannot be more confident of Thierry, and his leadership. As a result, I feel more optimistic about our future than ever before,” Premji said.

The difficult changes the company made have made the firm stronger and better, he said.

“I am very excited about the path we are on, and confident you will see a bolder and more ambitious Wipro as we move forward, that is unafraid to shake up the status quo, make tough calls, invest deep, and think big,” Premji said.