<div id="readability-page-1"><div><p>“The only thing that will speak for me is numbers. You can infer from it and we will have to convert the pipeline we have,” said Wipro Chief Executive Officer Srini Pallia last month when asked if the company is on course to a long-awaited turnaround — a delay that has often befuddled and frustrated investors.<small> </small></p></div><div><div><div id="article-index-0">  <p>  The Wipro turnaround story has been more than a decade in the making. Talk of a possible revival was sparked early in April, when the company announced a large deal.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-1">  <p>  The deal was with Mindsprint, the IT services arm of Singapore’s Olam Group. As part of the deal, valued at $375 million, Wipro will deliver end-to-end transformation services to the food and agri-business company through a consulting led and AI powered approach. It will ensure a steady revenue of $1 billion in total contract value over eight years with a committed spending of $800 million.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-2">  <p>  But in these years of waiting, the technology landscape has changed, digital transformation has given way to AI transformation and Wipro has had three CEOs. At best, Wipro’s turnaround can be termed as work in progress.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-3">  <p>  In that same time period, other IT services companies have galloped past the Bengaluru-based firm which now languishes at number four with the gap between it and HCLTech, at number three, growing with every passing year.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-4">  <p>  For the financial year ended March 2016, Wipro reported revenue of $7.34 billion while HCL was breathing down its neck with $6.23 billion. At the end of March 2026, Wipro reported IT services revenue of $10.47 billion while HCL now stood at $14.6 billion. That translates to a compound annual growth rate of 3.62 per cent for Wipro and 8.89 per cent for HCL. Infosys’ revenue is twice that of Wipro now, and TCS’s is three times as much.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-6">  <p>  Wipro’s sluggish growth can be attributed to bets on geographies and sectors going wrong, acquisitions not delivering to expectations, project ramp-downs — when it’s near completion, operations are gradually tapered — delays in ramping up large deals, and macroeconomic uncertainties. The changes at the top, coupled with the departure of senior executives who led important geographies, mean the company has been unable to set up a clear, well-defined narrative over the last few years.<small> </small> </p> </div><div id="article-index-7">  <p>  What has really gone against Wipro is the underperformance of its banking financial services and insurance (BFSI) vertical which accounted for 34 per cent of revenue last financial year. That sector reported negative growth on a constant currency basis in four of the last six years —often dragged down by client ramp-downs in Europe. There was also the broader challenge of converting consulting wins by Capco, a British firm Wipro acquired in 2021.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-8">  <p>  “Capco, the $1.45 billion consulting acquisition that was supposed to be Wipro's BFSI growth engine, has not been able to lift the rest of the BFSI book. The consulting-to-execution flywheel that Wipro pitched at the time of the Capco deal is still not fully working,” said Gaurav Vasu, founder and CEO of UnearthInsights, a business and financial intelligence firm.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-9">  <p>  Analysts, however, are not completely bearish on the Azim Premji-founded company. They say the company is still early in its turnaround journey, and that there are more tangible signs of strategic direction now than a couple of years ago.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-10">  <p>  “Srini (Pallia, the CEO) has inherited an organisation that had drifted into inconsistent execution, fragmented positioning, and too many disconnected growth bets. What we are seeing now is a more deliberate attempt to simplify the operating model and reposition Wipro around AI-native, platform-led services,” said Phil Fersht, founder and CEO of HfS Research.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-11">  <p>  The company gave the top job to Pallia, an insider for more than three decades, after trying out external candidates such as Abidali Neemuchwala and Thierry Delaporte.        <small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-12">  <p>  “The biggest signal is that Wipro no longer appears content being a traditional labour-arbitrage IT firm. Moves like launching Wipro Intelligence, consolidating consulting and BPS (business process service), creating the AI-native business and platforms unit, and now the Olam/Mindsprint deal all point to a company trying to break out of linear services growth and move toward what HFS calls services-as-software,” Fersht adds.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-14">  <p>  Praveen Bhadada, CEO and managing director of business and management consulting firm Neovay Global, also said these signal a broader shift towards platform-led, outcome-driven delivery rather than traditional linear services. “At the same time, client metrics remain stable, with growth in top accounts and improving contribution from newer logos.”<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-15">  <p>  Large deals have been Pallia’s primary focus as he tries to boost revenue and turn around the company. In the last financial year, Wipro’s large deal bookings stood at $7.8 billion, up 45.4 per cent from the same period a year earlier and from $4.6 billion just two years ago. Large deal bookings are identified as those having a total contract value (TCV) of $30 million and above. At Wipro, these also include seven mega-deals worth more than $500 million each.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-16">  <p>  However, such deals, which are mainly cost optimisation and vendor consolidation programmes, are often slow to ramp up and take time to materialise. In a demand environment which is already subdued, large deals also mean fierce competition among IT services players, which usually eats into the margins.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-17">  <p>  While announcing the company’s fourth quarter results, Pallia attributed the drop in IT services revenue to a host of factors, including geopolitical uncertainties and client-specific issues which prevented some large deals from ramping up.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-18">  <p>  “The deal pipeline is the strongest in years; the Olam strategic engagement and the share buyback recently signal decisiveness; and the Capco plus Harman DTS deal plus Wipro Intelligence combination gives Wipro a differentiated story to tell, if it can be commercially converted. The flicker of hope is real, but it must compete with peers who are also running faster </p> </div><div id="article-index-20">  <p>  Wipro says some of its strategic initiatives have already started showing results. Sources acknowledge that Europe has been a major pain-point, where the company reported three straight years of de-growth in constant currency. But they say Wipro now has stable leadership under Omkar Nisal, the CEO of the firm’s Europe strategic market unit with good deals in the pipeline in the UK and Germany. Europe has also reported three consecutive quarters of growth last fiscal.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-21">  <p>  The company’s operating margins have also gone up to 17.2 per cent from 16.1 per cent two years ago. Share prices however have lost 21.6 per cent of their value in the last one year.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-22">  <p>  Wipro is also looking to alter its AI strategy which is less about launching another AI practice than about trying to redesign the architecture of the business itself. Rather than relying on pilots, the company is attempting to productise execution through reusable platforms, industry-specific AI models, embedded governance frameworks, and outcome-oriented delivery.However, unlike Accenture, TCS and HCLTech, the company has not disclosed its AI revenue.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-24">  <p>  Similarly, Wipro’s consulting business is also getting a pivot, as part of which it launched a new operating model across interactions with clients at different stages and AI to help their digital transformation. The new consulting-led, AI-powered operating model brings end-to-end accountability across four core functional areas: People and change; supply chain and operations; finance transformation and sales, and marketing and customer experience.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-25">  <p>  “The aim is to get a foot in the door of clients through this, get additional revenue and win large deals. We have started winning small deals there worth about $5-8 million,” the source cited above said.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-26">  <p>  Wipro Consulting will work with chief executives to frame their AI strategy and operating model. At the solutioning stage, it will build AI-powered operating model designs, along with process re-engineering, and scenario modelling to ensure solutions are developed for execution. Wipro BPS teams will then deliver AI-enabled intelligent automation, predictive insights, and optimisation across business operations.<small> </small></p> </div><div id="article-index-27">  <div><p>Fersht of Hfs said the biggest challenge for Wipro is execution. “Wipro’s challenge is not lack of ideas. In fact, some of its recent structural moves are arguably bolder than peers. The problem is proving it can operationalise these bets faster and more consistently.”<small> </small></p></div> </div></div></div></div>

<p>Wipro's turnaround remains elusive as CEO Srini Pallia emphasizes the importance of numbers. The company recently secured a $375 million deal with Mindsprint, promising $1 billion in revenue over eight years. However, Wipro's growth has lagged behind competitors like HCLTech and Infosys, attributed to missteps in strategy and underperformance in key sectors. Analysts see potential for improvement as Wipro shifts towards AI-driven services and simplifies its operations, indicating a possible change in trajectory.</p>

Wipro's long wait for turnaround continues as Pallia bets big on deals