We run courses for government school teachers on Sundays. These teachers pay for their own food and stay; the kind of commitment you find in these people is remarkable.
We are partners to leading organizations across industries and have delivered marquee and transformational programs.
Certain product lines are more suited to be manufactured in proximity with the customer, while others are more suitable to be manufactured in India.
The Western world loves liberalisation, provided it doesn't affect them.
Over these years, I have irrevocably transferred a significant part of the shareholding in Wipro, amounting to 39% of the shares of Wipro, to a trust.
Being in the consumer business helps us groom talent in areas like marketing, finance and logistics. We can benchmark our outsourcing business to our consumer business and its best practices.
I inherited the company from my father after he died very unexpectedly from a heart attack in 1966. He was just 51 years old, and I was 21.
We entered the global market only in the end-'80s, and that was because imports became more liberal.
The responsibility of philanthropy rests with us. The wealthier we are, the more powerful we get. We cannot put the entire onus on the government.
The concept of the strong linkage to the family is breaking down in Western nations.
How can you contribute towards building the Indian society and the Indian nation? No better way than to upgrade the quality of young people in school, particularly the schools which are run by the state government in the villages.
What is excellence? It is about going a little beyond what we expect from ourselves. Part of the need for excellence is imposed on us externally by our customers. Our competition keeps us on our toes, especially when it is global in nature.
I can speak English. I can speak Hindi. I can understand one or two other languages.
Our managers need to have a strong integration of managerial skills and technical understanding. One cannot substitute for the other.
Despite widely differing perspectives and agendas, there seems to be a remarkable global consensus that has built up over a fairly short period of time that climate change and ecology is one of the truly defining issues for humanity.
You cannot mandate philanthropy. It has to come from within, and when it does, it is deeply satisfying.
People are the key to success or extraordinary success.
The West is not producing enough engineers.
If one has been blessed or have been fortunate enough to have got much more than normal wealth, it is but natural that one expects a certain fiduciary responsibility in terms of how that wealth is applied, used and leveraged for purposes of society.
I think the most important reason for our success is that very early in our quest into globalisation, we invested in people - and we have done that consistently and particularly in the service business.
We believe that two people who have worked together for more than 10 years and been in the company for more than 15 years would be able to work very well as a team.
Wipro is one of the fastest growing companies regionally and globally, and I am personally very excited with our journey in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The success of Wipro has made me a wealthy person.
When I took over the family business, it had already been a publicly traded company for 20 years. During one of the first annual meetings I attended, one shareholder stood up and advised me and everyone in attendance that I should resign.
I think that any wealth creates a sense of trusteeship... it is characteristic of the new generation which has created wealth to have some amount of responsibility for it.
I.B.M. was not really bringing their best technologies to India. They were dumping old machines in the country that had been thrown away in the rest of the world 10 years before.
Even if I was to give my children a small part of my wealth, it would be more than they can digest in many lifetimes.
People are beginning to realize that education is power, that education is money, that education is an opportunity.
If there are differences of views or divergence of ideas, they can be resolved through discussion and dialogue.
I have never had the need or thrill for being wealthy.
Excellence can be as strong a uniting force as solid vision.
Frankly, I don't know how many companies there are, globally, which are truly global.
The three ordinary things that we often don't pay enough attention to, but which I believe are the drivers of all success, are hard work, perseverance, and basic honesty.
Western companies want access to Indian talent. That is why they outsource; that is why they come to India to set up base.
The importance of this success of Wipro has become manifold more, because it's the success of Wipro that enables the possibility of making a difference to some of the most disadvantaged people in the world.
I was studying at Stanford University with two quarters left to go before receiving an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering. Then, I got the telephone call from my mother. I had no choice. I went home, and I jumped into the company feet first, right from day one. There was no time to grieve my father.
The job of nation building, the job of nation leadership in a difficult, complex coalition has worked.
Colleges produce more sports therapists than engineers. Perhaps because America is a sporty country: a lot of outdoors.
Customers are now driven by trying to optimize value.
You can do clean business in India.
I don't think being a Muslim or being a non-Muslim has been an advantage or disadvantage.
Our experience is that it is not terribly difficult to do business in China. But the issue is, how much stability do you have in terms of what you negotiate up front and when you've got your feet and your investments on the ground.
What we are doing is we are putting in significant training into the people we have currently to upgrade their skill resources, upgrade the presentation resources, and upgrade what we expect from them in terms of not business as usual.
The U.K. and the U.S. are quite similar in that they have high-productivity, English-speaking workforces who don't mind working long hours. Working in those countries is not a problem.
If the United States wants access to Chinese, Indian or Vietnamese markets, we must get access to theirs. U.S. protectionism is very subtle but it is very much there.
We get first-rate faculty members from the leading engineering and science institutes to train our people.
You have students in America, in Britain, who do not want to be engineers. Perhaps it is the workload, I studied engineering, and I know what a grind it is.
The important thing about outsourcing or global sourcing is that it becomes a very powerful tool to leverage talent, improve productivity and reduce work cycles.
Wipro Arabia is a joint venture company with Dar Al Riyadh, a well-diversified group in Saudi Arabia.
