A Legacy Beyond IT

Azim Premji’s work has created in Wipro a global corporation likely to endure. And his philanthropy efforts have become a model for other wealthy persons to emulate

- Harichandan Arakali

In September, Wipro, India’s fourth biggest software services company by revenue, said it had won an order to supply IT services worth between $1.5 billion and $1.6 billion. This was the biggest order it had ever landed in its history, the Bengaluru-head quartered company said in a press release.

The foundation of this achievement was laid over half a century ago, when a young Azim Premji was setting out to transform his parents’ vegetable oil business into a technology company. The transformation continues to date, as Wipro—along with the rest of the IT services industry it helped pioneer—builds its cloud and digital services capabilities.

The $1.6 billion order, from US-based Alight Solutions LLC, spans 10 years and will “enable the digital transformation of Alight’s offerings across health, wealth, HR and finance solutions. Besides, it will enhance the employee experience of Alight’s clients by leveraging Wipro’s industry-leading strengths in digital technologies, cognitive automation and data analytics”, the company said.

In transforming Wipro into such a global provider of sophisticated technology services, Premji has also risen up the ranks to become India’s second richest person. The journey started in 1966, when, at the age of 21, he had to leave Stanford University without completing his engineering degree due to his father’s death; he eventually completed it in 2000.

Premji, 73, remains active as chairman of Wipro and his influence also spans a non-IT, privately held business, which is worth over a billion dollars; a family office that holds private equity investments in multiple ventures and businesses, and a highly respected philanthropic effort via the Azim Premji Foundation, which he set up in 2001, and further funded with a $2 billion endowment from his own wealth.