Wipro to venture into consulting

Wipro, India’s outsourcing giant has unveiled plans to establish business units specializing in providing professional consulting services to work out strategies for companies trying to enter emerging markets.

In line with this, Wipro has set up camp in Boston in order to push the company’s project management consulting. This thrust into consulting is all part of strategies to circumvent the usual competition route in the areas of expertise like business process outsourcing (BPO) and application development. These happen to be the same markets that the Chinese companies with their lower labor costs are infiltrating.

Wipro, along with two others of India’s top outsourcing companies: Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, is branching out into consulting as an extension of the current line up of outsourced services.

Consistent with the primary motivation behind outsourcing, branching out into consulting is borne of the cost advantage of doing business in India. Even with the double-digit annual salary growth posted by India, a college graduate still earns only a fraction of his American counterpart. This affords the outsourcing company the chance to set several employees to work on a single project.

Well-knowing its standing, Wipro says it is not aiming to go head on against other broad-based consulting outfits like the Boston Consulting Group.

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