Question: AssignmentDetails: Case Study: Wipro Consulting Services Building an Optimal Global Configuration in Business and IT Consulting Industry In the Wipro Consulting Services (WCS) board met at the Wipro Headquarters in Bangalore, India, in December 2008, to review the progress of the consulting division had made since being set up in June 2008, T.K. Kurien, president of WCS, commenced his address by setting out the exciting path for WCS:
Innovation remains a key focus for companiesseeking to spur growth, and delivering innovation is our fundamental value proposition. Built on a combination of process excellence, quality framework and service delivery innovation, we are seeing exceptional demand for our consulting expertise. Our consumers are now asking for higher-level advisory services to complement our world-class IT and IPO services. WCS is thus uniquely positioned to help clients in setting the agenda for strategic cost reduction, capital efficiency, and improve customer experience in transformation related programs.
Sitting next to Kurien was Kirk Strawser who had joined WCS early during the week as its global head of consulting services from Capgemini consulting. Having listened to Kurien and other speakers, he then spoke out,striking a note of caution:
Innovation on its own is not sufficient. We need to do a number of things before we get there. First we need to emphasize our cost leadership. Clients want industry specific, integrated solutions (Consulting, IT, Product Engineering, BPO) delivered using innovative, accelerated approaches that drive measurable improvements in critical metrics such as free cash flow and return on equity. Second we need to really work on our global delivery capability. We need to start hiring young bright MBA graduates from top Indian business schools, train them as analysts for a year in India by assigning them to consulting team and rotate them globally on live engagements. Third we need to start engaging with potential customers who have no transactional history with the Wipro Technologies.
The technology consulting business which had started as a strategic initiative within Wipro Technologies eight years ago in the backdrop of 2001. IT slowdown had now matured into a thriving business. To fully take advantage of the opportunities this sector had to offer, Wipro had Unit Moderation set up WCS as a dedicated organization with its own structure. But to become a business leader in technology consulting, WCS needed to go further. It needed the independence and strategic focus that come from operating as a separate unit within Wipro, while at the same time taking advantage of its parent's prowess in technology and impressive customer base.
Courtesy: This case was prepared by Joseph Lampel, Ajay Bhalla and Kaivalya Vishnu (2011)
Case questions:
1. How far could the WCS leadership go in developing its own identity, committing resources to scale up, and developing its own model for global delivery?
2. Was WCS focusing its strategy on the following three dimensions in order to make this happen? (hint: branding and positioning, scaling, product differentiation from competitors.) Discuss.
3. Was WCS reexamined the global delivery model? Discuss.
4. Illustrate the strategy for long term perspective business relationships.
Instructions to the students: Please do a good research to bring evidence while you answer the questions. The negative marks will be allocated for just reproduce the theory from website or text book.