Innovation at Wipro Limited - Case study

Summary:
Innovation is a critical factor for success in outsourcing industry. Vendors have to constantly
innovate and offer services to clients that help them to increase their profitability. Innovation is
must in the highly competitive outsourcing industry where vendors are fighting for clients and
clients are looking for vendors that have innovation frameworks in their organizations and have
successfully provided innovative services to clients that not only reduce costs and improve
process efficiency but also increase profitability for both Wipro and clients. Wipro technologies
have created a culture that regarded the quest for innovation as its norm.

1. Is the Innovation strategy adopted by Wipro since 2000 is successful?

Innovation initiatives were developed based on a study of innovation methods in companies like
Nike, 3M, and Home Depot that were reputed for their innovative practices. Wipro considered
commercial viability of the ideas as critical to good innovation. Top management developed a
framework for innovation and the framework provided guidelines right from the idea generation
stage to commercialization of that idea. The innovation process at Wipro was represented
through the Innovation Clock which consisted of 12 steps. Creation of an innovation framework
followed by identifying the themes to be worked on is the first step. Generating ideas from
employees and validation of those ideas by the customer is next. Wipro also realized rewards and
recognition will motivate employees to come up with innovative ideas and framed a detailed
rewards policy.
Wipro Intranet Web enabled the whole innovation process and was the place where employees
posted their ideas. Wipro constituted innovation teams, conducted workshops, and issued
innovation process guidelines to all its managers and business group heads. Wipro set up an
Innovation council with five gate ways in all its business groups. Innovation council consists of
CTO and five permanent members whose responsibility is to evaluate idea and its commercial
viability. The five gateways are Idea gate (idea generation), Evaluation gate (idea screening),
Commitment gate (resource commitment), Development gate (customer order, business plan &
projected revenues) and Volume gate (commercialization of idea). For Wipro Innovation Clock
Graphic please refer to end of the post.
Wipro conducted an Annual event called TechForum where employees present papers and
conduct demos on their ideas. It set up Innovation center in Bangalore that employed around 200
people in 2003 and provided funds and infrastructure to nurture innovative ideas and turn them
into products. Wipro also set up Centers of Excellence that are R&D centers for future
technological challenges. By 2003 Wipro through these innovation initiatives have developed
innovative products like Flow-Brix, workflow solutions for publishing, i-Desk, Collaboration
tool for HR management, etc.

2. Wipro has created a culture of Innovation in the organization. Did this culture generate
revenues for Wipro?
Wipro believes businesses are facing challenges and opportunities which are very different to
what they were a decade ago or even a year ago and the world is looking up to innovation in the
triangle of technology, sociology and the environment to help them deal with these changes.
Wipro believes it can leverage on its institutionalized innovation culture to push the boundaries
for delivering solutions that provide enhanced value and direct impact for their customers.
Innovations like India's most powerful supercomputer, a cost-effective Base Terminal Station
designed for GSM networks in underserved markets, a mobile switching router for emerging
markets, connected home concept and Wipro Energy Manager that uses M2M communication
are some of the products of the Wipro innovation culture. Wipro as part of ODC concept legacy
has also developed application-based innovations like Flex and Cigma delivery models which are
service-based as opposed to resource-based.
3. What is the clients view of Wipro Innovation culture and how did it work for them?
Wipro was the first Indian Company in 2007 to set up an Offshore Development Center (ODC)
model campus with facilities like client engagement centre, learning centre, 3 floor ODC setup
with cubicles, security desk at the campus entrance gate, etc. These initiatives create a huge
client satisfaction and got very positive response indeed.
In 2008 Wipro launched a SOA solutions lab which gives customers an opportunity to explore
the impact of SOA in transforming their organizations. In 2009 Wipro launched its 'Innovation
Centre' for Testing Services on SecondLife.com, the popular virtual world. The Innovation
center will be a replica of the actual lab that is situated at Wipro campus in Electronic City,
Bangalore and will provide a one stop virtual view of IP powered solutions offered by Wipro that
includes consultancy, test lifecycle accelerators, pre-certification and certification in the areas of
Wi-Fi and mobile handsets, test design solutions in banking, securities and Point of Sale,
performance engineering and telecom testing.
Wipros such action and initiative has facilitated their clients hence got a huge applauded
response.
4. Will Wipro strategy of collaborating with other IT Vendors like Hardware vendors and
Research Organizations help it in innovation?
Applied Innovation is the ability to infuse newer ideas and newer ways of doing things into all
parts of the organization, and improve business outcomes, often without major disruptive
change. It is a 360-degree business approach covering process, delivery, business and technology
innovations that help Wipro to work collaboratively with other IT Vendors like Hardware
vendors and Research Organizations for cost take-outs, speed-to-market and new business
opportunities. This approach is backed by a 25-year heritage in providing domain-intensive
technology solutions. Based on this framework Wipro has internally developed products like
eCargo suite (Airline Industry), TINA platform (SOA), etc.
Wipro and EMC alliance unites Wipro's applied innovation framework for developing new
solutions and services around EMC's industry-leading information infrastructure technologies to

enable more organizations, specifically in targeted growth markets, to optimize their

infrastructures, secure and protect their information, and leverage their information to unlock its
full potential. Wipro believes to explore collaboration of industry and application specific
solutions in key business areas that solve customer needs related to storage management,
information management, content management, and information security. For this it has
developed strategy to collaborate with other IT Vendors like Hardware vendors and Research
Organizations which in turn giving them boos and more anchored position in industry.