WIPRO TECH FINNISHES FIRST AMONG FOREIGN EMPLOYERS

June 22, 2007

Today’s Top Story

WIPRO TECH FINNISHES FIRST AMONG FOREIGN EMPLOYERS
Moinak Mitra, New Delhi
The Economic Times (Delhi edition)

Wipro Technologies has emerged as Finland’s largest non-Finnish employer.
With 700 people on its rolls, this is the tag the company is fighting for
in the sparsely-populated land of the Finns. In June 2006, the
$3.4-billion Indian IT major had scooped up Finnish R&D firm Saraware for
Rs 146-crore with a 193 headcount. With this acquisition, Wipro in
Finland, has bagged the largest foreign recruiter tag. Saraware, a
provider of design and engineering services to telecom companies, has its
domain competencies in the areas of radio networks and secure mobile
platforms.

While company officials are drumming up the ‘largest non-Finnish job
provider’ card, they are also validating the fact with relevant Finnish
authorities. “Today, we are the largest non-Finnish employer in Finland,
and are now in the process of validating it from the necessary
authorities,” says chief marketing officer of Wipro Technologies Jessie
Paul.

According to FinPro, the trade office of the Embassy of Finland in New
Delhi, even 700 is a relatively large number in terms of headcount in
Nordic Finland. “In 2005, there were only 269 companies in Finland with
more than 500 employees, as most Finnish companies are small,” points out
a market analyst with FinPro Ulla Roiha.

No prizes, though, for guessing the largest Finnish employer. Nokia leads
the pack by miles with a 23,000-strong workforce in Finland. “Nokia
Finland is indeed the largest corporate in terms of headcount,” confirms D
Shivakumar, vice-president and country general manager of Nokia India,
hastening to add that non-Finnish companies in Finland generally have
headcount to the tune of 500-600.

Kees Nijenhuis, the London-based senior vice-president, Europe, at Wipro
Technologies, however, follows a guarded approach. “We are among one of
the largest non-Finnish employers in Finland,” he observes. In Europe,
Wipro acquisitions cater to local needs acting in concert with Wipro’s
overall global strategy. “Saraware has been a very successful acquisition
(for Wipro) as we’ve been able to aggregate the business lines of Wipro
and help the business grow, which in turn called for new recruits,” he
adds.

For Wipro, at 700 headcount, Saraware also harbours the company’s largest
overseas workforce. Employees in other Wipro acquisitions throughout
Europe have significantly lesser people employed. The Austria-based
NewLogic shelters 150-odd people while Enabler in Portugal trucks along
with 280 workers, and the Swedenbased Hydrauto Group has 180 people on its
rolls. Even AMS, an American utilities company whose UK arm was bought
over by Wipro three years back, has tripled in size in revenue terms.
There were 60 people in the company when Wipro took over. Today, sources
say, there are over 200.

In Europe, Wipro has been expanding its service lines across business
optimization services and solutions consulting. The company started
operations in the Nordics in 1997 and works with telecom equipment
vendors, telecom service providers, governmental organizations, embedded
systems and access device companies and other corporates. The company
today has over 1,500 consultants involved in servicing Nordic clients.