One of the major defining characteristics of the IT services market for the past decade has been traditional firms’ ability to reinvent themselves as digital. The challenges are myriad. First, the core IT business isn’t going anywhere; it’s an essential building block of the modern enterprise. And yet, providers must also bring in a raft of broader digital capabilities, including elusive design talent. While we’ve already charted Wipro’s ongoing mission to move away from traditional IT services, during a recent visit to its London innovation labs, the latest step became clearer. If Wipro clients want to get the most out of the firm, they must use the firm’s growing consulting arm as the doorway to the rest of the firm’s capabilities across strategy, design, and technology.
Digital Pods enable clients to have a closer relationship with solutions
Increasingly, clients want a closer relationship with service providers and the solutions they provide. Wipro has recognized this and continues to build out Digital Pods in major delivery center locations to cater to this demand. This, in itself, isn’t revolutionary—there are many providers pursuing localization strategies that include major investments in innovation labs and delivery centers. The difference with Wipro is that in these labs, they have built out sections dedicated to the three key tenets of the firm’s approach to digital—across strategy and consulting, digital and design, and core technology solutions.
Leading the design section is Designit, a valuable acquisition made by Wipro in 2015 that, after a rocky start, has cemented itself and integrated well with the broader Wipro business. Supporting the design team is a well-equipped consulting team and Wipro’s traditional technology strength. In the London pod we visited, all three units were present, enabling clients to move seamlessly through consultative problem solving, solution design, and, finally, development and implementation.
External perception is a challenge, navigating myriad business units internally can be impossible
Re-labelling London real estate as a Digital Pod and plopping inter-disciplinary teams into offices is a relatively easy PR win. The real magic happens when traditional siloes break down—and Wipro seems to have found a unique approach to making this happen. In reality, the approaches and experiences of different business units are hard to assail. Take, for example, our tour of the Digital Pod; the stark differences between the three core business units are immediately noticeable. The design team has built its space with a clear focus on experience and aesthetics. Plants hang from the ceilings, and sofas litter the room—a sharp contrast to the spartan functionality the consulting and strategy team opted for or the relaxed and collaborative open-plan office the developers have set up shop in.
Understanding that each of these groups of talented professionals goes about work in a different way and brings in fresh perspective and ideas is essential. Rather than forcing integration, Wipro has opted for a softer approach. It designed a team called “navigators” that can maneuver clients, teams, and workloads between the teams—blurring siloes rather than ruthlessly smashing them apart. The result, it seems, is very effective. Throughout the entire building are examples of seamlessly collaborative projects involving all of the teams; for example, redesigning experiences on an airline or developing innovative solutions for major consumer goods firms.
Furthermore, the teams have a decentralized talent management process that ensures the best talent from across Wipro finds the right teams. The process ensures professionals find themselves not only in an area where their skills and passions are most suited, but also where they have an aptitude in one or more of Wipro’s core growth areas—strategy, design, and technology. Long gone are the days when an engineering career was all about having to make a choice—the modern digital professionals career is fluid, and they require and expect opportunities to move into different business areas.
The Bottom Line: Wipro may have found the approach, but it is still reliant on evolving client mindsets.
It’s clear this approach makes sense for Wipro, but there’s still plenty of work to do to convince the market the firm has long since moved on from traditional IT services. Part of the work will be to pivot the firm’s Digital Pod model to become the window to the rest of the firm’s capabilities. A major bugbear we hear from clients is that complexity across technology has made IT services firms complicated and unnavigable. Clients need help—their own navigators to chaperone them to the right part of Wipro’s leviathan delivery engine.
This evolution will require a major mindset shift for the industry—one that it perhaps simply isn’t ready for. Wipro must start the work now to transform the perception of its delivery capability. Wipro can achieve this by engaging clients with its new model and convincing them this is the best way to engage and build out solutions. But, to an extent, this will need to be a significant change management exercise internally to help all areas of the Wipro delivery engine understand how blending technology, strategy, and design is an essential step to engaging with the new breed of decision makers.