Capgemini COO Thierry Delaporte becomes new Wipro CEO and MD

Neemuchwala will step down as CEO on June 1 while executive chairman Rishad Premji will oversee day-to-day operations of the company until Delaporte takes over on July 6

IT services major Wipro on Friday said it has appointed Capgemini Group veteran Thierry Delaporte as its Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, effective July 6, 2020. In January this year, the company had said its CEO and Managing Director Abidali Z Neemuchwala had decided to step down from the company. Abidali Neemuchwala will relinquish his position as CEO and MD on June 1.

Rishad Premji will oversee the day-to-day operations of the company until July 5, Wipro said in a statement. “Until recently, Thierry Delaporte was the Chief Operating Officer of Capgemini Group and a member of its group executive board. During his 25 year career with Capgemini, he held several leadership roles,” it said. He also oversaw Capgemini’s India operations, and led the group’s transformation agenda, conceptualising and driving several strategic programs across various business units, it added.

“Thierry has an exceptional leadership track record, strong international exposure, deep strategic expertise, a unique ability to forge long-standing client relationships, and proven experience of driving transformation and managing technological disruption. We believe that Thierry is the right person to lead Wipro in its next phase of growth,” Rishad Premji, Chairman of Wipro, said.

Delaporte will be based in Paris and will report to Rishad Premji. “I look forward to working closely with Rishad, the board, senior leadership and the hugely talented employees of Wipro to turn a new chapter of growth and build a better tomorrow for all our stakeholders,” Delaporte said…Read More

JustDial data leak exposed personal details of 100 million users: IT expert

Cyber-security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia claims that user data ‘including name, email, mobile number, gender, dob, address, photo, company, occupation & other details’ are publicly accessile

Technology News: Justdial, a company that provides local search for different services in India over voice calls and internet, suffered a data breach last week that compromised the personal details of 100 million users, according to independent cyber-security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia.

Inc42 quoted a senior JustDial executive on Monday as saying that the company is investigating the alledged loopholes in its database and that the company’s systems are foolproof. Rajaharia said on Wednesday that user data “including name, email, mobile number, gender, dob, address, photo, company, occupation & other details are publicly accessible” on the site. An Economic Times report on Thursday quoted the expert as saying that the company has not been able to fix the breach. He said that 70 per cent of the data was of users who called JustDial’s customer care number ‘88888 88888’.

He told Inc42 that the link between JustDial application and database is not protected. Data breach incidences in India were the second highest globally in 2018, according to a report by digital security firm Gemalto.

A report by news agency IANS said on Wednesday that cyber security experts have raised alarms over an ‘advanced phishing attack’ on IT bellwether Wipro, saying that no organisation, regardless of its size, is immune from sophisticated cyber criminals in India. The IT giant suffered an attack on its employee database. E-commerce giant Amazon faced a data leak in December last year that exposed some sellers’ private financial information to other users. Amazon India has 150 million registered users and around 4 million merchants sell on its platform.

The issue of safety of user data took centre stage after Facebook, the global social media giant, disclosed that an obscure gaming app fed users’ data to political data mining firm Cambridge Analytica without authorisation in early 2018. Data of about 87 million users, by one estimate, were left exposed.

Infosys stock slumps 5% most since August 21, 2017; NSE IT index falls 1%

Wipro, TCS and HCL Technologies ended with gains of more than half a per cent

 

Infosys Ltd is a global technology services firm that defines designs and delivers information technology (IT)-enabled business solutions to their clients. The company provides end-to-end business solutions that leverage technology for their clients including technical consulting design development product engineering maintenance systems integration package-enabled consulting and implementation and infrastructure management services.

The company also provides software products to the banking industry. They have developed Finacle a universal banking solution to large and medium size banks across India and overseas. Infosys BPO is a majority owned subsidiary. Through Infosys BPO the company provides business process management services such as offsite customer relationship management finance and accounting and administration and sales order processing.

The company is having marketing and technical alliance with FileNet IBM Intel Microsoft Oracle and System Application Products. Infosys Ltd is a public limited and India’s second largest software exporter company was incorporated in the year 1981 as Infosys Consultants Pvt Ltd by Mr.N.R.Narayana Murthy at Karnataka.

Infosys shares fell 4.55 per cent on Thursday, the most since August 21, 2017. The stock ended at Rs 1,284 after climbing to a lifetime high of Rs 1,354 on Tuesday.

The stock is still up 24 per cent this year. In comparison, the benchmark Nifty has gained two per cent and the Nifty IT index, a gauge for the performance of technology stocks, has gained 20 per cent in 2018. The NSE IT index on Thursday fell just 1.1 per cent as other heavyweights Wipro, TCS and HCL Technologies ended with gains of more than half a per cent amid the rupee closing at a new low of 68.94 against the dollar.

The exact reason for the sell-off in the stock, which caused a market cap erosion of Rs 131 billion, was not evident.

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Wipro hikes pay of top staff: Neemuchwala’s salary up 34.5% to Rs 182 mn

Wipro’s Chief Strategy Officer Rishad A Premji’s compensation also grew by more than 250 per cent to Rs 58 million

 

Wipro chief executive Abidali Z Neemuchwala saw his pay package growing over 34 per cent to Rs 182.3 million (Rs 18.23 crore) during FY2017-18 compared to the previous financial year, as per the company’s annual report.

Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) Rishad A Premji’s compensation also grew by more than 250 per cent to Rs 58 million (Rs 5.8 crore) in the said financial year.

Azim H Premji, the Executive Chairman and Managing Director, saw his remuneration increase 10.13 per cent to Rs 8.7 million (Rs 87 lakh) in FY2018.

According to the report, Neemuchwala — who was paid in US dollars — received an equivalent of Rs 62.9 million (Rs 6.29 crore) in gross salary, Rs 17 million (Rs 1.70 crore) in variable pay, Rs 102 million (Rs 10.2 crore) in other annual compensation along with other perks, taking his total compensation to Rs 182.3 million (Rs 18.23 crore) for FY2017-18.

“Computation of remuneration to CEO and Executive Director is on an accrual basis and includes amortisation of ADS Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) granted to him, which vests over a period a time. This also includes RSUs that vest based on performance parameters the company,” the report added.

Rashid Premji received Rs 9.3 million (Rs 93.33 lakh) in salary, Rs 5.35 million (Rs 53.52 lakh) in allowances and Rs 41.3 million (Rs 4.13 crore) under commission/incentives/variable pay along with other perks, taking his compensation for the financial year to Rs 58 million (Rs 5.8 crore).

The report said the computation of remuneration to Rishad Premji included cash-based bonus (part of his variable pay) on an accrual basis, which is payable over a period of time.

Besides, Wipro CFO Jatin Dalal saw his remuneration increase by 2.42 per cent to Rs 46.5 million (Rs 4.65 crore).

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Pink slips galore: Wipro, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant cut India jobs

Tech Mahindra recently fired close to 1,000 employees; Wipro was the canary in the coal mine

 

Once India's global claim to fame, the country's information technology (IT) sector is seeing a spate of layoffs by IT majors like Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Infosys and Cognizant. 

The churn in the IT sector — which is moving towards increasing automation, use of artificial intelligence and is beset by tightening visa regulations — is likely to affect mid-level employees with 10-15 years of experience the most, as many are averse to learning new skills, industry experts have said.

Further, Indian IT firms are witnessing their slowest growth in a decade, while global firms are shifting their budgets from traditional IT services to newer areas such as digital and cloud, which require engineers to engage with clients instead of working remotely. Even as this shift takes hold of the sector, automation is increasingly taking over low-end maintenance work, forcing companies to shift workers to other projects and reduce hiring from campuses. 

Tech Mahindra joins the bandwagon

As reported earlier, software services firm Tech Mahindra has sacked a thousand-odd employees this month. 

However, what happened at Tech Mahindra is not an outlier, other IT majors like Wipro, Cognizant, Infosys and Capgemini are also facing their own share of challenges, and moving to either prune or re-skill their respective workforce. 

“We have a process of weeding out bottom performers every year and this year is no different,” a Tech Mahindra spokesperson said.

As on December 31, 2016, the company’s total employee headcount stood at 117,095, while the software division had 80,858 employees. 

Wipro was the canary in the coal mine

Late in April, Wipro move to sack around 500 of its employees as part of its appraisal process. (Read more) 

The company is reported to have weeded out "non-performers" after a "rigorous performance appraisal". 

While Wipro did not specify the exact number of affected employees, the company said it “undertakes a rigorous performance appraisal process on a regular basis to align its workforce with the business objectives, strategic priorities of the organisation, and requirements of our clients”.

“This systematic and comprehensive performance evaluation process triggers a series of actions, such as mentoring, retraining and up-skilling. The performance appraisal may also lead to the separation of some employees from the company and these numbers vary from year to year,” it said. (READ MORE)

TCS announces share buyback; Infosys and Wipro may follow

Investors eye a piece of the large cash kitty as growth slows

COMPANY NEWS | Barely a week after the US-based software services player Cognizant Technology Solutions, which has several delivery centres in India, announced plans to return $3.4 billion to its shareholders through buyback of shares and dividends, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), too, said its board would be meeting on Monday to consider a buyback plan.

In a statement to stock exchanges on Thursday, TCS said, “We would like to inform you that the board of directors will consider a proposal for buyback of equity shares of the company at its meeting to be held on February 20, 2017.” If approved, this will be TCS’ first buyback since its listing in 2004.

The Street took the news positively, as stocks of domestic information technology (IT) majors - TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and HCL Technologies - were up 1.4-3 per cent on Thursday.

 

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