From a vegetable oil company to India's third largest IT services company, here is Wipro's inspiring story

After his father’s sudden death in 1961, Azim Premji returned from Stanford University and immediately took over the reins of Wipro at the young age of 21 and was instrumental in guiding the company to new heights for four decades

Despite focusing on the IT industry, Wipro is one of the leaders in the consumer market even today. It stands behind Nirma and Dabur and some of its products such as Sunflower, Kisan and Santoor are the most popular and loved products in India.

In February 2002, Wipro became the first software technology and services company in India to be certified for ISO 14001 certification. Additionally, the company also achieved ISO 9000 certification to become the first software company to get SEI CMM Level 5 in the same year.

In 2013, Azim Premji became the first Indian to sign up for ‘The Giving Pledge’ which is a campaign led by Warren Buffet and Bill Gates to encourage the wealthiest people to make a commitment to give most of their wealth to philanthrophic causes. Elon Musk and Tim Cook had also contributed to this campaign.

In 2014, Wipro signed a 10-year IT sourcing deal with ATCO, a Canadian Energy & Utilities corporation based out of Calgary, Alberta. At $1.2 billion, this was the largest deal in Wipro's history and would result in revenues of $112 million annually for the company till 2024

Azim Premji, the Chairman of Wipro Ltd is also a known philanthropist and he decided to take that a notch higher in 2015 when he announced that he would give away an additional 18% of his stake to his foundation Azim Premji Foundation, which was set up in 2001 with an aim to improve the country’s school system.

He had been transferring his shares to the foundation since 2010. In 2010, he transferred 9% of his shares that amounted to a whopping $2 billion. He followed it up in 2013 by transferring 12% of his shares worth $2.3 billion and finally in 2015 he transferred an additional 18% which translates to a whopping $5.3 billion.

The company is also the master of development with Wipro Technologies running 44 development centers in the world. It is also the largest independent provider of Research and Development in the World

Wipro is also known for its focus towards ecological sustainability. Infact, in 2012, Greenpeace ranked Wipro first with a score of 7.1/10 in Guide to Greener Electronics.

As of 2015, Wipro is valued at $8.4 billion in terms of total assets and the company also has $35 billion market capitalization. It is also one of the largest companies to be listed in BSE, NSE AND NYSE.