Wipro says automation can reduce its employee strength by 47,000

Wipro, India's third-largest IT services firm, expects its headcount to come down by about 47,000 in the next three years as it stresses on automation, artificial intelligence and digital services.

According to a source, Wipro CEO T K Kurien, at an analyst event in Frankfurt (Germany) on Tuesday, said that as the firm moves its automation focus to applications from services, there will be reduction in employee strength.

"In the same breath, the CEO made it clear that the focus is not on eliminating positions, but gaining greater efficiency", the source added.

An industry insider believes that Wipro with its increased focus on automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and digital services may bring down 30 per cent of its headcount in the next three years.

As of March 31, 2015, the Bangalore-based company's total workforce stood at 1,58,217.

Kurien sees the next big wave of growth for the software vendor will come from BPO automation.

Besides, Wipro expects digital services to be among its top three service lines in the next 3 years.

The software services major posted a net profit of Rs 2,286.5 crore in January-March 2015, 2.1 per cent higher than Rs 2,239.1 crore a year ago, in line with expectations.

This was helped by robust momentum in infrastructure and healthcare services.

Wipro, which gets a dominant chunk of its revenues from IT, saw its topline growing 3.9 per cent to Rs 12,171.4 crore for the March quarter from Rs 11,703.6 crore in the year-ago period.

Revenues from IT services business increased six per cent year-on-year to Rs 11,240 crore, up 3.2 per cent, in the reported quarter.