03/11/2009 09:48   admin   1223  

IT major Wipro is looking to up the ante in its consulting business. By beefing up its front-end, the company sees this unit of consulting business contributing at least 20 percent of Wipro's total revenues in the next five years.T K Kurien, president, global programmes and strategic initiatives, Wipro, and head of the consulting

Thanuja B M, Bangalore
Financial Chronicle

IT major Wipro is looking to up the ante in its consulting business. By beefing up its front-end, the company sees this unit of consulting business contributing at least 20 percent of Wipro's total revenues in the next five years. 

T K Kurien, president, global programmes and strategic initiatives, Wipro, and head of the consulting unit said, "We have seen traction for consulting services coming back in the first two quarters of this year. I expect consulting to play a significant role in transformational deals that Wipro wins, especially in areas like operational improvement and risk compliance across verticals."

The future potential of a consulting unit could account for 20 percent of Wipro's total IT services income in five years. Currently, the business contributes between 3 to 5 per cent to revenues at the Bangalore-based firm. 

Wipro has been using consulting engagements to sell and widen deals to include IT services.

The front-end of the consulting team (domain consultants and client partners) has been beefed up to around 80 people. "This is one of our big deal acquisition drivers," Kurien said.

The company presently sells $2.5 to $3 of IT services for every $1 of consulting offering. The consulting division's head wants to take this ratio up to $5 of IT revenue in the next two years. Kurien said the deal sizes in the consulting segment are becoming "bigger and longer". 

Traditionally, engagements have been for around 6 to 8 weeks and worth about $500,000 on an average. 

In the second quarter of FY10, Wipro won two contracts -- one was worth $15 million for two years and another three-year deal worth $6 million. 

According to Kurien, the size has increased because Wipro is now widening the scope of work by integrating specialised areas like change management, front-end consulting and process management. 

Newer segments like green consulting, market risk and cloud computing are being added to the consulting practice, which presently employs 1,100 people. 

Wipro consulting plans to increase this number to around 1,250-1,300 people by end of the fiscal.