Wipro concludes Spectramind acquisition transaction

BANGALORE: Wipro Limited has concluded the transaction for acquisition of 66 percent stake in Spectramind e-Services Private Limited on July 31,2002. Post this acquisition, Wipro’s aggregate interest in Spectramind is around 90 percent of all outstanding equity shares, including convertible preference shares. This was announced recently by Wipro through a media release, after the announcement of the plan to buy the lion’s share of Spectramind for Rs 407 crore.

With this strategic acquisition, Wipro Technologies, the global IT services division of Wipro Limited, along with Spectramind plans to offer integrated solutions for all BPO needs of clients worldwide. Wipro’s strength as a leader in IT Services, quality, in terms of SEI-CMM, SEI-PCMM, SEI-CMMi and Six Sigma based processes, will be complemented by Spectramind’s COPC certification using Six Sigma platform.

Spectramind, with its 2700 strong team, addresses the BPO needs of its 7 global customers covering over 28 processes. Wipro Technologies has been providing technology intensive secondary and tertiary customer support services, in the past. The combination strengthens Wipro of its BPO offerings with the inclusion of Backroom Processing Services and Customer Contact Services to its portfolio of services.

Wipro has designed to deliver value to its BPO clients in three stages-

• Improving cost efficiencies by moving operations offshore


• Improving process efficiencies and continuous process improvements by using Six-Sigma tools


• Process optimization by re-engineering comprising redesigning the process and by changing the IT solution that supports the process.

"The addition of the new services will enhance the value of our customer relationships as they can rely on our experience and processes for these services as well," said Wipro Technologies CEO, Vivek Paul. "Our initiatives such as Six Sigma and CMMi have helped raise the quality expectations of our clients, and we are happy that now they will derive the same quality standards for BPO as well using Six Sigma, Kaizen and COPC."

BPO is a key strategic initiative for Wipro and is expected to be a key growth driver. The Industry data and analyst reports indicate that India is likely to grow as a destination of choice for IT Enabled Services. The revenue from ITES out of India grew at 69 percent over the previous year to $ 1495 million in 2001-02. Within ITES, the fastest growing segment was customer interaction or call centers, which grew at 123 percent. This segment is expected to grow to $ 21 billion by 2007-08.