Passion for success makes an entrepreneur: Premji

BANGALORE, INDIA: What makes a successful entrepreneur is not the ambition to make money but the passion for success, said Azim H Premji, chairman, Wipro Limited and one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time.

While delivering the keynote address at the inaugural session of the TiE Entrepreneurial Summit 2008, here today, Azim Premji said that it was the challenge of running an organization, without any prior business experience that gave him the courage to move forward and diversify Wipro from the commodity business to brand building.

“We had all the leading MNCs in India at that time and brand building in that scenario meant long hours of hard work and long hours of marketing.”

For the hard work Wipro had a strong and committed workforce. And to retain that workforce they should have a sense of belonging towards the organization.

“We were the first in India to retain talented people through ownership in Wipro,” Premji pointed out describing how a diversified Wipro was built on the foundation of values, without making it an economic engine.

It is this sense of social responsibility that made Wipro always focus on ecological sustainability too.

When Wipro stepped into IT business in 1980, IBM had already established its base in India. But that did not deter the organization from its aims and goals and Wipro moved ahead with a back-up strategy.

“We developed a very strong R&D wing comprising nearly 500 people, which was five times bigger than the sales and marketing team,” he said.

And later the R&D wing was further diversified and today it is the largest third party R&D company.

Now Wipro is a company with a global footprint and presence in 35 countries. What made Wipro a great success story is the governance system in the organization and the transparency within, he said.

IT is completely dependent on customers and hence consistency in delivering to the customer requirement is of utmost importance, he added.

The question is “how do you deliver consistent quality to the customer of highest standard,” Premji pointed out.

Elaborating on the commitment of Wipro towards the society, Premji talked about Wipro’s initiatives in the field of education – from primary education to the engineering. “Through these education programs Wipro has reached out to more than 700000 students and thousands of teachers. “Our aim is to upgrade the standard of education,” he said.

Azim Premji Foundation, which focuses on the educational activities, now has a strength of 300 committed apart from the support of 800-odd NGOs.

Talking about entrepreneurship Azim Premji said: “Opportunity do not wait for any one; opportunities are here today, it may go tomorrow.”

Premji said there are more than 100 entrepreneurs or rather ‘intrepreneurs’, within Wipro and the company boldly handles the financial risk therein.