Wipro is one company. One legal entity. But its structure and governance are more similar to those of a loose group. Part of the reason is legacythe consumer care and lighting division, Wipros original business is still within Wipro Ltdand part of it is because of its now-famous "string of pearls" acquisition strategy. In fact, Wipro has been the most prolific acquirer in the last two financial years, acquiring some seven companies in the IT business alone and getting into a joint venture with one of the worlds top telecom companies, Motorola.

Hence, it makes a lot of sense to analyze Wipros success in integrating the acquired entities with the parent for the purpose of evaluation of Wipros performance as a group. Most of Wipros acquisitions have been in the last two years. And barring one3D Networks by Wipro Infotechacquisitions have been for the purpose of acquiring technology skills or domain skills. Both the size and nature of these acquisitions such as Quantech, Saraware and RetailBox, are such that integration is not much of an issue.

Success Story
A better indicator would be to evaluate the integration of Wipro BPO, acquired in 2003 when it was called Spectramind, with Wipro. FY 07 was the year in which the integration, not in a legal sense of the word but in terms of building business synergies, was complete. Spectarmind was the largest BPO company in India at the time of its acquisition and was growing well. TK Kurien, the CEO who took over from its founder-CEO, the charismatic Raman Roy, however, started asking some difficult questions in true GE-like fashion (Kurien is a GE import). The answers convinced him that building a scaleable, efficient model by platformizing skillsets, a better integration with Wipros IT business and growing non-voice revenues were the key priorities. Sounds simple today, but at that time, it meant decelerating growth. He took that hard decision. It is only last year that the first phase of that integration was complete. Wipro BPO did lose some steam in growth and ceded the top BPO position among IT services firms to TCS; but it is now more of an integrated entity within Wipro.

The only other acquisition where the integration would be equally tough though on a smaller scale would be 3D Networks. Unlike other acquisitions, 3D Networks was a direct competitor to Wipros network integration business in India and the Apac. And, the two companies had a very different reputation: while 3D was perceived as a street-smart firm, Wipros own reputation has been that of an extremely ethical, long-term player, albeit slower. Also, the principal networking vendors that they were identified with were different. It happened in November, and it may be to early to draw conclusion.

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