GROWTH CHALLENGE

With a new CEO at the helm, IT major Wipro is trying to send out a word of assurance to its employees and investors 

- KRISHNA GOPALAN

THE SWIFTNESS OF the change in leadership at Wipro highlights the scale of challenges that have plagued the IT major. Right on top of that list is the company’s financial performance, with net profit falling year-on-year in the fourth quarter of financial year 2023-24 (Q4FY24). Then there are the departures of around 10 senior leaders in 2023.

These factors together led to the premature exit of Thierry Delaporte as Wipro’s CEO and MD, and the selection of internal candidate Srinivas Pallia as his replacement.

That said, those tracking the company were not completely surprised by the development. According to Gaurav Vasu, CEO and Founder of market intelligence firm UnearthInsight, there was speculation about Delaporte’s exit for at least six to eight months. “This was on account of financial underperformance, the exit of key leaders and high-quality middle-level talent,” he says. After the pandemic, there was a lot of hype around tech investments and tech transformation. That helped Wipro and others in the industry—Tier-I and II firms. But a host of factors, like inflation, interest rate hikes across the world, and a slowdown in tech spending had a negative impact. “It was obvious in those companies that had not built a multi-vertical, multi-geo, and client-first strategy of farming existing clients, since getting new deals was taking longer if there was no differentiated offering or capability,” Vasu adds.