Wipro Japan K.K.

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), is a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services (BPS) company. Wipro is recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, and has 170,000 dedicated employees serving clients across six continents.

Wipro expanded to Japan early on, establishing its Japanese subsidiary, Wipro Japan K.K. (hereafter “Wipro Japan”), in Yokohama, Kanagawa. In addition to its Yokohama headquarters, the company also established a delivery center in Osaka. Wipro currently has around 325 employees in Japan, serving more than 50 companies in the automobiles, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals industries.

Japanese companies operating internationally require optimization of their IT estate in order to understand and manage overseas business from their headquarters in Japan. “Through providing integrated IT systems solutions, we at Wipro are contributing to the continued global success of Japanese businesses,” said Manoj Nagpaul, Senior Vice President and Business Head, Asia Pacific and Japan, Wipro Limited..

The Asia-Pacific region (excluding India) comprised 11.1% of Wipro’s 8.1 billion US dollars (approximately 98.1 billion JPY) in global sales for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. According to Mr. Nagpaul, the Japanese market is “one of the big bets” in Wipro’s business. “We predict major growth for the Japanese market in the future, and we are pursuing the necessary investments for further expansion,” he emphasized.

Wipro Japan provides infrastructure platform solutions like cloud as well as integration of business applications through combining its global expertise and technologies with knowledge gained from many years of doing business in Japan. The company has also been leading the industry as a pioneer in digital transformation with its IoT and AI technologies, which are key pillars of the fourth industrial revolution.

“Recently, in Japan, we have seen a rise in business which focusses on improving client convenience. For example, digital banking services, that can enable banking from the comforts of the home are on the rise. The customer no longer has to go to the bank, as all transactions can be conducted over a mobile phone,” Mr. Nagpaul explained.

Wipro is expanding its services by acquiring foreign companies that are already established in the Japanese market. For example, in 2015 the company acquired Appirio, a US company which has been providing cloud services in the Japanese market for eight years. Given that Appirio has provided services to companies like Salesforce that is known for its CRM technologies, Wipro can provide support to Japanese clients who are looking to incorporate CRM systems leveraging Appirio’s experience in Japan. Additionally, post the acquisition of Appirio, Topcoder has joined Wipro’s umbrella. Topcoder is the world’s largest talent network and crowdsourcing platform for developers, designers, data scientists and testers. As a leader in its field, some of Topcoder’s notable clients include National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Harvard University in the US and Fujitsu, Soft Bank and Zurich Insurance in Japan.

According to Mr. Nagpaul, “Topcoder provides clients seeking IT solutions or applications with a crowdsourcing platform. This system enables clients to access high-quality services at optimal cost. By adding Topcoder to the Wipro network, clients using our services gain an early entry into markets and access to global talent, all through a single platform.”

“Wipro also has partnerships with SAP ,Microsoft, Salesforce, AWS, Oracle, Cisco and other major technology organizations. Our global partnerships with these companies put us in a position of advantage as we are able to leverage their presence and technology products to provide services to niche industries in Japan,” said Naohide Takatani, Country Head, Japan, Wipro Limited..

Wipro Japan has established a unique delivery framework tailored to Japan’s high quality standards and precise deadlines, thus garnering the trust of the Japanese market.

Major Japanese companies are among Wipro’s clients. “We contributed to modernizing All Nippon Airways (ANA)’s maintenance process of aircraft parts. An aircraft is manufactured from over two million parts and management of this vast amount of advanced parts is extremely difficult. To address this challenge, we provided them with the necessary IT systems for maintenance and management. We have also been entrusted with providing the IT infrastructure and application management at the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company,” explained Mr. Nagpaul. Mr. Takatani added, “It has been ten years since we began supplying software solutions for Fujitsu Network Communications, a company with an over 30-year history of doing business in North America. These technologies we provide are in use at its offices in every country.”

Wipro provides customized IT services for clients outside of Japan as well. The services built with Japanese standards are highly regarded, globally.

With regards to future aspirations, Mr. Nagpaul stated, “For Wipro, Japan is the second largest market in the Asia-Pacific region following Australia, and has great potential. We hope to accelerate our growth by investing in a greater number of projects over the next four to five years.”

(Interviewed July 2019)