 "Wipro to split India, West Asia business")
Wipro chief executive Abidali Neemuchwala has split the information technology (IT) major's India and Middle East (West Asia) business in two. And, carved a separate hyper automation group by consolidating the Artificial Intelligence (AI) assets such as Holmes that would be headed by its chief technology officer, K R Sanjiv.
The backdrop is the government push for a 'Digital India' and the move towards a less-cash society. So, the company's India region would now be an independent entity with its head reporting directly to Neemuchwala. He has appointed Sreenath A V, currently head of Wipro's global Oracle Practice, to head the India region.
Pandurang Desai will continue to head the Middle East region. He will report to Anand Padmanabhan, who will assume this role in addition to his current charge as global head of the ENU strategic business unit.
The split of India and West Asia regions into separate business would be effective April 1, Wipro stated.
The Bengaluru-based IT major is betting on automation and AI to drive new business and productivity for its clients. And, has stepped up investments here, with a separate hyper automation group. The business, to be headed by Sanjiv, would consolidate Holmes, the AI platform, and other automation intellectual property.
Says Neemuchwala: "I believe the future of work is going to be very different from the way we do it now. For any task we need to do for our clients, we'll look at eliminating the process or the task altogether. What we can't eliminate, we'll look at hyper automating by using robotics and AI. And, what we can't hyper automate, we'll then crowdsource." He'd said this in an interview with analyst firm HfS last month.
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