At first I thought it must be an April Fool’s joke, but it seems not. TK Kurien, Wipro’s new CEO (see Wipro surges in Europe and turfs joint CEOs) has completely dispensed with the company’s regional organisation and reverted to a ‘global’ (read India-led) industry vertical structure. Jeffery Heenan Jalil, who took over as head of Wipro Europe only a year ago, now heads up Wipro’s Telecom Equipment Vertical unit (telco hardware clients), reporting to Global Media & Telecom head, Mark Fleming. Fleming appears to be the only non-Indian in Kurien’s top echelon, which also includes the recently promoted and highly regarded Sangita Singh, previously head of Wipro’s Enterprise Application Services unit (see Wipro re-org sees Singh climb higher).
This is truly bonkers. While all the other major India-based players are scrambling to strengthen their regional and country organisations – especially in Continental Europe – Wipro is going in precisely the opposite direction. If this is the basis of Kurien’s strategy to ‘fix’ Wipro’s sub-par growth and margin performance, then I really worry about the company’s prospects, especially outside of its core US market.
Wipro will be reporting its Q4 results in a couple of weeks and it will be fascinating to see whether Wipro has managed to pick up pace again – though we suspect that the ‘slash and burn’ that Kurien has apparently instigated may well have had just the opposite effect! Indeed, I wonder how morale must be after employees read the recent Businessworld interview with Kurien, where he is quoted thus: “If I had dummies … which I can inject with fresh blood and DNA in the morning, I will probably have a different structure. But for now, this is what the organisation can take”. Or not, as the case may well turn out to be!