WIPRO SPECTRAMIND: 10,000 Not Out

The year was, mixed one for the most visible icon of India's BPO story. While it continued to add new customers and processes, it lost its numero uno position to WNS Global. However, major negatives for the company were pulling back part of its work by Lehman Brothers and then Capital One. It was more a case of bad publicity, for a company that has long been the darling of the media, than any real business setback.

Having added 12 new customers, and having substantially increased its sales force, the company ended the year with 76 different processes in hand. Reaching out to six geographies for real-time business and 11 for data processing business, 80% of the business still accrued from US while the rest 20% was divided between Asia-Pacific and Europe. It also brought down its unhealthy dependence on one client-for almost half of its business (44%) in the previous year to just about 25% in 2003-04. Being a part of Wipro meant two benefits from Spectramind-an ability to scale the business substantially, without having to bother about funds, and excellent customer traction. The share of telecom could go up in the revenue mix this year.