Now, Azim Premji brings Japan to Bangalore

George Iype in Bangalore

At Wipro Corporation headquarters in Bangalore, it is not software solutions and cutting edge technologies that one often hears about. These days a growing number of Wipro engineers mutter difficult terms -- in Japanese. Some even relate stories about Azim Premji and the art of conquering Japan.

They say their boss — Premji, the Wipro Corporation chairman — loves reading about Zen.

India's first infotech billionaire is said to be so enamoured by Japan that he is these days learning the importance of controlling and concentrating the mind through Zen.

But jokes apart, every one agrees: after Tamil superstar Rajnikanth dazzled the Japanese through Muthu, it is Premji who is conquering Japan. It is not his personal riches — that consists of 75 per cent of Wipro stock — but his company's major foray into the Japanese market which has made Premji the darling of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.

Mori, the first Japanese premier to visit the country after Toshiki Kaifu's trip 10 years ago, will begin on Monday his India tour from Bangalore — not from New Delhi as is the custom — thanks to a personal invitation from Premji.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu earned a name for himself by luring US President Bill Clinton to visit Hyderabad in March. But don't think that it is Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna who is bringing Mori to Bangalore, the country's fountainhead of the information technology revolution.

In July, Premji went to Tokyo and met Mori. The Japanese prime minister, confides Premji, is a keen India watcher — not because India exploded five nuclear bombs in 1998 — but because of the boom in infotech that is changing the world's biggest democracy.

Wipro officials say Premji's meeting with Mori was just an official one, meant to apprise the Japanese premier about Wipro's long term plans for Tokyo as the company completed setting up a new subsidiary — Wipro Japan KK — exclusively for the Japanese market.

Mori and Premji became friends. "Mori admired Premji because he read in Forbes magazine that Premji is the Indian version of Bill Gates," says a senior Wipro official.

The official adds that Mori regards Premji as "an innovator" who heads one of India's largest conventional conglomerates with interests from cooking oil, lighting, medical services to software. But Mori's interests lay in finding out how much the 'Indian Bill Gates' could help Japan emerge as an infotech giant like India.

The Japanese premier was keen to know how India is using IT in the vast number of primary and higher education schools and colleges. He wanted to see how IT is enabling India to leapfrog into high technology areas. He wanted to feel how Bangalore has developed into India's Silicon Valley.

Sensing Mori's eagerness, Premji promptly invited the Japanese prime minister to visit Bangalore. Mori immediately said 'Yes' to Premji's invitation.

Wipro and Premji have reasons to be happy as Mori takes a tour of Wipro — and also Infosys — in Bangalore on Tuesday to get a first hand understanding of how the Indian IT sector is working.

It will mark the beginning of a new era of co-operation based on a gamut of IT initiatives. Therefore, many believe, a Japanese premier's first ever visit to the country in a decade is more infotech-oriented, rather than enmeshed in bilateral talks on political and security matters.

Especially for Wipro, Mori's tour to its headquarters will be momentous because the company is the largest Indian provider of IT services in Japan.

Wipro's software alliance with Japan has become an enduring one in just five years. In fact, it was only in 1995 that Wipro established a presence in Japan. But today, nearly 10 per cent of the company's software exports are to Japan, in both technology services and enterprise applications.

Currently Wipro serves more than 22 Japanese customers such as Sony, Daiwa, NEC, Hitachi, Epson, Canon, Fujitsu, BSI and MMS. The company has also set up dedicated offshore development facilities in India — in Bangalore — where more than 600 software engineers work exclusively for Japanese customers.

For Japan and Wipro, the first major stumbling block in their infotech association was language. Any Indian company has to overcome the cultural and language barriers while executing cutting edge technologies and major businesses in Japan. But in the last five years, the Japanese government and Wipro have proved that language is not a headache in enterprise applications, for the young Wipro engineers are these days getting trained in Japanese language programmes.

Wipro has invested in specialised Japanese training programmes. Under the programmes, already nearly 100 Wipro engineers have become experts in Japanese language platforms.

Wipro — which grew software exports to $ 240 million in 1999-2000 — now provides product realisation services for technology companies in Japan in networking, computing and communications. Its other special focus areas in Japan include mobile services, embedded system, internet technologies, telecom and finance applications.

As Wipro top brass get ready to welcome Mori, Premji and other infotech gurus say the Japanese premier's trip will tremendously help Bangalore to partner in many joint Indo-Japanese infotech programmes.

Thus a beaming Premji has issued a statement welcoming Mori: 'The Japanese prime minister's visit per se is a recognition of India’s prowess in IT services, and signifies an invitation to partner with Japan for mutual business growth. The visit will provide the requisite level of comfort Japanese companies need to rapidly enhance the outsourcing of software from India.'

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