Vivek Paul — Wipro’s man of focus
Vivek Paul, the vice chairman of Wipro Ltd and president of Wipro Technologies has been an industry veteran.
He worked with GE (General Electric) for 10 years where he helped start the GE initiative in 1989 to source software from India as a member of the very first evaluation team to visit India.
From there, he went on to identify partners for GE in India and launched the pioneering joint venture between GE’s Medical Systems and Wipro. This was back in the early 1990s. His efforts and initiatives saw him rising and becoming the president and CEO of this joint venture. He saw the venture grow — from being a fledgling start-up to a leader in the domestic Indian market — and built a strong local sales and service network around it.
The venture started by making scanners for the domestic market. By 1995, GE was sourcing all of its worldwide demand for that range of scanners from India. This venture became the largest Indian exporter of indigenously designed and manufactured high tech products. With such experiences tucked under his belt, Paul clearly proved his mettle for future responsibilities.
This engineer from BITS Pilani went on to complete his MBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He had worked with Pepsico before joining GE and after his stint in India, went back to the US in 1996 to run GE's Global CT Scanner business with over US$700M in revenues.
And
he kept his beliefs simple: industry-focussed
business units, intimacy with customers,
and leveraging technology to the maximum
extent. |
The business bestseller book Six Sigma mentioned his pioneering work with the application of Six Sigma techniques in high tech product design.
Thereafter, after joining Wipro in mid-1999, Paul focused on harnessing the enormous pool of talent available in the country and in Wipro. He achieved this by employee empowerment, virtual training and driving centers of excellence for emerging technologies. And he kept his beliefs simple: industry-focussed business units, intimacy with customers, and leveraging technology to the maximum extent.
Paul has shifted his base from Bangalore to Silicon Valley, California, where he focuses equally on both — market and technology. - Anshul Chauhan, ZDNet India