Bangalore-headquartered WeP Peripherals, which was spun out from Wipro in 2000 to operate as a separate company with focus on IT peripherals such as printers, UPS and networking products, has now given birth to another IT services and solutions firm.
As part of its corporate restructuring plans, the company has demerged its IT services business into a separate company with primary focus on enterprise security, managed printing solutions and technology distribution. Known as wep solutions Ltd., the new company was legally-separated from WeP Peripherals in March this year. With a revenue of Rs 170 crore, the company employs close to 140 people now.
Post demerger, WeP Peripheral will concentrate on the hardware business including printers and UPS solutions, with a revenue of close to Rs 180 crore.
The decision to float a new IT services company came against the backdrop of Wipro reducing its stake in WeP Peripherals to 15 per cent almost a year ago which significantly reduced its role in various policy decisions.
In a filing before the SEC, Wipro had earlier stated that consequent to the reduction in Wipro’s holding, “it does not have the ability to exercise significant influence over the operating and financial policies of WeP Peripherals”.
Wipro will have 15 per cent holding in wep solutions, while the rest of the holdings will be owned by the employees of WeP Peripherals and WeP Solutions. While the board of directors in wep solutions has remained the same, the company has made some key appointments at the top level including the appointment of joint CEOs.
The company has appointed K Purushottam, a former HP vice president, and B Ashok, working with Cisco India, as their joint CEOs.
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“The decision to demerge the IT business as a separate company was taken as part of our corporate restructuring plans. The management is of the belief that there is enough growth potential in each of the areas it operates in,” said K Purushottam, Joint CEO, wep solutions.
Close to 80 per cent of the revenues of wep solutions will now come from re-selling of products and solutions of global majors like CheckPoint, TrendMicro, EMC, IBM, Riverbed, RSA, VM Ware etc., Managed printing solutions, another business line what wep has inherited from WeP Peripherals, provides printing solutions and services to enterprises.
Besides, wep solution on Thursday has announced the launch of its Managed Security Services (MSS) offerings, as part of which the company will provide managed hardware and software services to mid-sized and large enterprises.
The market size for managed security services in India now stands at about Rs 200 crore, and expected to grow at a CAGR of 25 per cent for the next four years.
Wep Solutions will focus on key verticals including BFSI, manufacturing and financial BPO with a target to corner at least 20 per cent of the total market in the next two years, said Srinivasan Chandrasekharan, VP & GM, wep solutions.
In the fiscal to end on March 31, 2009, the company expects a 20 per cent growth in topline.