Wipro Consulting Services

ABOUT THIS COMPANY:

The times they are a-changin'
India's largest IT services and software provider has its roots in something far less technical: Wipro began in 1945 as Western Indian Vegetable Products, a family business that manufactured soap and vegetable oil. Azim Premji, Wipro's current chairman, was just 21 years old when his father, who ran the business, passed away in 1966. Premji left Stanford University, where he had been studying, and returned to India to manage the company. Under his leadership, Wipro diversified its product list and flourished, but the firm took a new turn in the 1970s. As the Indian government instituted stricter regulations on foreign tech companies doing business in the country, computer giants like IBM—which had held a virtual monopoly in the local market—packed up their operations and left India.