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Mr.Azim Premji's strength lies in bringing
together and building charged teams of high
potential-high performing people. His vision and
pragmatism have helped Wipro Corporation to become
the #2 most competitive and successful company in
India as rated by Business Today, a leading business
magazine in India Today, Wipro in terms of market
capitalization is among the top 10 Corporations in
India.
Mr. Premji very strongly believes that the most
important contributors to Wipro's success have been
the articulations and faithful adherence to core
values, a shared vision for the future,
identification and development of Wipro leaders
through clearly defined Wipro Leaders' Qualities.
A hands-on business leader with standards of
excellence in everything that the Corporation does,
Mr. Premji is almost fanatical about delivering
value to customers and his willingness to sacrifice
business and profits to hold on to "Our
Promise".
Mr. Premji was the Prime drive behind Wipro's
decision to achieve "Six Sigma" status in
the next six years. In his address to the top
management of Wipro Corporation on May 2. 1997, he
said, "The end objective of our 'customer-in'
concept is that we want to build the voice of the
customer in our products and services. This is
opposite to the concept of 'product-out', which is
the way the world has been operating for some
time." In this journey of achieving the near
defect-free products and services, Mr. Premji is
very clear that as a world class organisation, what
Wipro needs to be concerned about is the process,
not merely the results
The Stanford Alumni Magazine profiles Azim
Premji’s growth story in this insightful
article. Among other things, Premji’s
sentimental attachment for his Consumer Care
business (Wipro’s Vanaspathi and Santoor are part
of this) is fairly evident
Our biggest problem today is getting senior
management to transfer to the United States,”
Premji says. “If they want to go with their
families it’s too complicated because they’re
too comfortable here—they have high disposable
income, they have the advantage of servants, the
advantage of a chauffeur.”
Complicating matters further are the so-called NRIs,
nonresident Indians who hanker for home. The journey
back can be bumpy. In his recent memoir/biography, Two
Lives, Vikram Seth, MA ’79, describes the
trap young Indians can fall into when they’re
drawn to the United States: they take a few laps in
the pool and emerge to discover they’re 50,
raising kids who are more American than Indian, and
strapped to a mortgage— finding themselves “so
embedded in their temporary lives” that they only
return home on brief visits when a parent becomes
ill or dies |
