Energy vertical contributes 15% of Wipro's sales

Software services major Wipro, which recently hived off its non-IT business into a separate entity, now consider their energy vertical very lucrative, as more companies are turning to technology-centric methods for exploration and production of natural resources. It is little known that Wipro's energy and utilities segment contributes considerably to the enterprise's sales. In fact, it is Wipro's fastest growing business unit today.

The focus is moving from crude oil to shale gas, and now gas hydrates, in the energy industry. This translates into opportunities for Wipro, whose clientele consists of the world's second and third-largest oil companies, BP and Royal Dutch Shell.

In the last quarter of 2012, the unit grew 18% when compared to the same period last year. Wipro points out that this growth rate is at least three times as fast as any other business unit within the enterprise. The energy and utilities vertical contributes about 15%of the total sales, an Economic Times report states. This segment is on the verge of earning the company $1 billion in annual revenue, following the acquisition of the oil and gas practice of US-based Scientific Applications International Corp (SAIC) in mid-2011.From being a primarily Europe-focused, and offering downstream IT services to oil companies, the SAIC acquisition helped Wipro expand its client base to the US as well as complement its offerings with upstream services that go right up to the oil rig.

Anand Padmanabhan, who manages the energy business unit out of London for Wipro was quoted in the Economic Times report saying, "The acquisition helped us offer consulting and specialised services that are beyond IT infrastructure management or SAP implementation".

Wipro also provides data analysis services to oil companies to analyse the copious amount of data generated by sensitive sonar probes sent to oil wells to generate intelligence on the presence of oil or gas.