India’s third-largest software exporter Wipro ended the 2019 fiscal strong, but disappointed industry watchers with an uninspiring negative one per cent guidance. In an interaction with BusinessLine , Abidali Neemuchwala, who took over as CEO of Wipro three years ago, spoke about the ongoing transformation of the IT major, the reasons for the delay of certain projects and how the company is relying less on H1-B visas. Excerpts:

Three years on, is the transformation of Wipro taking longer than expected?

It has been a continued transition for us. We have made a lot of progress — in verticals such as banking and financial services, as well as in segments such as consumer business, energy and utilities.

We will see an uptick in growth rates of the communications and tech business units this year.

Our operating metrics, quarter after quarter, have shown consistent improvement across the board. The metrics include utilisation, off-shoring, percentage of work done by bots and attrition rates. This is reflected in our growth in the digital business, which is doing well and accounts for 35 per cent of our revenues. The cyber security business contributes to another 20 per cent. Our cloud business is worth $1.4 billion.

We still have some work to do in manufacturing and healthcare, which we feel could be choppy. In the US, we have grown in the double digits. But in Europe, we have a lot of room to grow. On client mining, in Q4, our top 10 customers continued to post a strong performance, and we added three new customers in the $75-million bucket. On a full-year basis, our top 10 clients grew by 9.6 per cent in reported terms.

Then why the hesitancy in giving a strong guidance?

Q1 is a seasonally weak quarter for us. The outlook also factors in completion of certain large programmes and delayed start of fresh projects in some segments, in spite of a strong order book coming out of the March-ended quarter.

However, we are confident that our growth trajectory will improve from the second quarter. If we try to chase revenues, then the quality of business will get impacted.

For building a long-term institution, we have to ensure the right mix of business and growth.

What is causing the delay in projects?

In the banking segment, a couple of deals saw volatility towards the end of last year and beginning of this year. In some other cases, the customer doesn’t immediately sign up for the next project after the completion of the first.

Your active clientele has come down in the last financial year to 1,115 from 1,178...

It is stable, and we see abundant opportunities in newer areas such as digital and cloud, and in all ‘big-bet’ areas. We also disengaged from some clients. In some cases, we were doing work which was not adding much value.

A few quarters back, you said the Indian business is undergoing restructuring. What is the status?

The results will take some time, but the restructuring is on track. We don’t have a timeline for that.

With the high denial rates, will you apply for lesser number of visas?

We continue to invest in localisation across all major markets. In the US, we reached 64 per cent localisation, and now have a well-established campus hiring programme.

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