AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

CASE STUDY
ON AN IT
(BPO) MNC
(INDIAN)
by :
DR. T.K. JAIN
AFTERSCHO☺OL
centre for social entrepreneurship
sivakamu veterinary hospital road
bikaner 334001 rajasthan, india
FOR – PGPSE PARTICIPANTS (ONLINE FREE PROGRAMME FOR EVERY-ONE WHO WANTS
TO BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR / SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR)
mobile : 91+9414430763
www.afterschool.tk

we solicit your response / ideas / articles / comments / feedback – pl. Send it at

afterschool@in.com

Ajim Premji is a symbol of entrepreneurship, and therefore Afterschoool considers Ajim

AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

Premji as a role model for every student of entrepreneurship. Wipro is an excellent

example of entrepreneurship, strategic management, and organisational development.
Wipro has adopted both organic and inorganic growth model. It selectively acquired those
companies which could help in its growth and create synergy. It acquired Telecom
companies to make its presence in telecom sector. It acquired European companies to
make its presence in European market. It successfully managed the transformation of
newly acquired comapanies and gave them the required autonomy to grow. The acquired
companies became a part of Wipro and enabled Wipro to grow and become an MNC. It
also established its offices all over the world to expand organically. It spin off many units to
focus on emerging sectors like BPO. Founded in the year 1945 it has grown into one of
the leading conglomerates in corporate India , it is the only Indian company to be ranked
among the ‘Top 10 Global Outsourcing Providers’ in the IAOP-Fortune. Initially it started
as a vegetable oil manufacturing company. Ajim Premji gave it a new direction. It has now
become a global player in IT and ITES industry. The company is today having a very
strong presence in the USA, Europe, Australia, Japan and other parts of the world. With a
revenue of over US 2 billion and market cap (NYSE WT) of over US 19 Billion as on Jan
2007 Wipro enjoys long term business relationships with many fortune 1000 and Global
500 clients. It has become synonymous with quality and customer satisfaction, a fact
reflected by the fact that more than 50 client relationships are over 5 years old.

Wipro established Wividus, its services arm in the year 2003, in order to support its growth
rate of over 35% annually, and to service the multiple internal partners at lower cost and
with higher service levels by centralizing and standardizing the various back office
transactions which were spread across the globe .

Currently Wividus manages processes of accounts payable, T&E, Benefit Administration ,

HR Administration, Payroll, Recruitment support etc for various Business units of Wipro.
During the past four years of its existence transactions handled at Wividus have grown
from around 800 to 3000 transactions per day.

The biggest challenge was in bringing about a cultural change in employees who were
hitherto getting services locally to shift to a faceless centralized entity. This was effectively
handled through email communications, presentations etc during the phase of setting up
AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

Wividus. The complete acceptance was achieved through visible and consistent
improvements in service levels that Wividus could deliver

Other challenges like process variations, different instances of applications etc were
handled by synchronizing processes across business units wherever possible,
consolidating SAP into a single instance, harmonized chart of accounts etc. People issues
were effectively handled by transferring employees doing similar operation in the business
unit into Wividus. Those who were not willing to relocate were offered alternative jobs in
their locations. The fact that Wividus has not slipped on its SLA (Sales level agreements –
in BPO industry, companies have an SLA with their clients, which specify quality standards
and consequences on default) for 62 consecutive weeks is ample proof for having
achieved the objectives of providing world class services and being able to scale up
whenever required.

Wividus has been able to play the role of a catalyst to Wipro’s overall success by
contribution on the following fronts namely

Provide a scalable model – Wividus has been able to meet the increase in transaction
volume ( Wipro adds about 2500 employees every quarter ) without slipping on its SLA
targets. Wividus continues to transition more processes every quarter from Business units
, an indication of its growth and the trust Business units repose in handing over processes
to Wividus. The transition of processes for the seven acquired business units have also
been completed without any major hiccups.

Improve quality of service: : Quality of services has improved by leaps and bounds
delivering above SLA consistently. Standardization and Centralization of processes have
resulted in better quality of service and consistent delivery to customers. The quality of
services is measured on a weekly basis by generation of MIS reports drawn directly from
the work flow application. Monthly analysis follows which depict the dashboard parameters
of each process which are circulated to the business units.
Internal Controls: Centralization of services has enabled easier and effective internal
controls in processes thereby helping SOX compliance. Process Audits by agencies both
internal and external ensure transparency and act as a trigger for continuous
AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

improvement.
Reduce cost:
The operations in Wividus have resulted in a cost reduction ranging from 13% to 49% YoY
across the various processes. This trend continues thereby allowing cost effective solution
to a business that is witnessing around 33% annual growth
Leverage for business opportunities:
Wividus has grown into a center of excellence and has been instrumental in showcasing
Wipro’s ability to provide offshore transaction outsourcing, thereby opening up huge
business opportunities. Wividus handles around 120 Customer visits annually to
demonstrate capabilities in this area.

Technology Integration
Following are some of the major technology tools implemented. They have greatly helped
in improving the productivity and providing accurate data.

• Imaging and workflow application ensures

o Proper routing
o Tracking of SLA
o Provides accurate Metrics

• Vendor Portal is a single window interface to the vendor from Quote to payment
• E-mail case management tool helps in tracking help desk queries
• Duplicate payment finder – detects possible duplicate payments
• Receivables management system- Tracks receivables
• Bank reconciliation tool- tracks un reconciled entries

Process Measurements
The metrics published on weekly, monthly and quarterly basis include

• Volume trends
• SLA adherence
• Analytics
AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

• Compliance
• Process variability

The Dashboards for the Processes are circulated to the Business units This is
supplemented by analytics that Wividus does on the transactions regarding spend patterns
and other similar data that gets sent to business units as a value add, on a quarterly basis.

Process improvements
The process improvements are driven by the meticulous implementation of Lean
Principles, and Six Sigma rigor, which is very much part of the Wipro culture built into
every process that runs at Wividus. ( Refer fig 6(a),(b),(c) ,(d)The variability of each major
process are being monitored on a sigma level basis and the Ppk values for each process
are monitored on a week on week basis.
Cost Efficiency :
Although Wividus witnessed an annual growth of 30% in transactions, the
corresponding growth in FTE has only been 6%. The trend of cost per transaction
process wise is also monitored . The drop in percentage in cost per transaction has
been in the range of 13% to 49% across processes. This has been possible due to the
meticulous application of lean and six sigma and infusion of appropriate technology.

Service level:
As mentioned earlier there is a very high focus on meeting SLA levels. The ultimate
statement of customer satisfaction, namely the employee rating for Wividus services
has been the real recognition with more than 78% of employees rating services to be
more than 4 on a scale of 1-5.

Another barometer is the number of processes the business units want to transition to
wividus Every quarter new processes continue to be transitioned into Wividus from
various BU’s , which is reflective of the efficiency and satisfaction that business units
derive by wividus managing their back office operations

People:
The biggest asset of wividus is its people . The team of 225 derives pride in belonging
AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

to an SSO that is considered a Center of excellence. This is reflected in the low attrition
rates of around 9% against the industry average of 40 % in the BPO industry in India.
Personnel have learnt and seen the effects of lean production systems being applied to
transaction processing and have developed a culture of identifying and eliminating
waste in their processes and activities. Wividus offers opportunities to learn and
improve career prospects.

The business week has published an article on the successful application of the
Toyota production system to transaction processing. Wividus stands tall today
with a processing volume in excess of 3000 transactions per day and being able
to deliver on its commitments both on Volume and Accuracy of transactions. The
integration of lean and Toyota production systems had prompted Business
Week to run an article on Wividus highlighting the application of Lean
techniques to transaction processing activities.

Case Discussions :
1. Discuss what are the pillers for success of a company in BPO industry based on
this case
2. Discuss how Wipro can further diversify (from Vegetable oil to software to ITES
to .....) and how ?