Here’s why TCS needs to be cautioned about Wipro’s intentions

One after the other, Wipro is poaching veterans from Tata Consultancy Service (TCS). Having poached Abid Ali Neemuchwala as its operations chief, Wipro has now picked up another top executive from TCS, Dave Chopra as Vice President of its key global infrastructure business.

"Wipro can confirm that Dave Chopra has joined the company as vice-president, global infrastructure services, and will be responsible for driving strategy, marketing and business development for GIS. He will report to GK Prasanna, chief executive & president, global infrastructure services, Wipro," a Wipro spokesperson said.

Infrastructure services business contributes nearly $2 billion, or about Rs 13,200 crore, of annual revenues to the Bengaluru-based IT major.

Chopra has been the global head of strategy for infrastructure services at TCS and has spent nearly 15 years at the country's top software exporter. As per his LinkedIn profile, he joined Wipro in August and is based out of New York.

According to a report by outsourcing advisory ISG, at least $250 billion, or about Rs 16,50,000 crore, worth of deals are coming up for renewal in the next three years, with a significant chunk of it being driven by infrastructure services.

Also Read: Number of crorepatis increasing at Wipro

Since Neemuchwala, former head of TCS' business process outsourcing division, came on board as president and COO in April, Wipro has poached some senior executives from TCS. The list includes Ankur Prakash, who heads emerging markets business of Wipro, and David D'Lima, head of its newly-created integrated services and solutions group — an initiative being personally driven by Neemuchwala. Neemuchwala, a potential CEO for Wipro in future , is trying to replicate a strategy of bundling together services and solutions that multinational rivals such as IBM have adopted for years to serve top clients.

Since last few years, Wipro has lagged peers such as TCS, Infosys and US-based Cognizant Technology Services, and struggled to maintain consistency in its performance, triggering many overhauls and reshuffles inside the company.

(Image: Blog CEB)