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Wipro sees more business from Ericsson

Software giant Wipro Ltd said it expected to gain a stronger foothold in the global business plans of Ericsson following the Swedish telecom equipment maker's decision to give it preferred supplier status.

Wipro Technologies, the infotech services unit of Wipro, India's largest software company by market value, announced last week it was chosen as Ericsson's preferred supplier to do consultancy services in telecom research and development.

The R&D business involves core technologies and higher profit margins.

"This means preference over other empanelled and non-preferred customers, access to larger parts of Ericsson's organisation and work as a virtual extension of Ericsson team," Sudip Nandy, vice-president, sales and marketing of the European operations of Wipro Technologies told Reuters by e-mail.

Nandy added Wipro would also share a closer involvement with the development plans and strategies of Ericsson.

Nandy said Wipro is working now with Ericsson in the technology and product development area through a development centre set up in Bangalore two years ago.

"Ericsson figures as one of Wipro's highest growth customers and is rapidly moving from medium to large category," he said.

He did not give details of Wipro's total business exposure to Ericsson.

Ericsson's deeper business ties with Wipro come at a time when analysts had expected Indian IT firms to be hurt by slower business growth from global telecom clients following a cut in technology spending.

Wipro Technologies counts Nokia and Lucent as its clients besides Canada's Nortel Networks which was its biggest customer in the last quarter which ended in March.

Wipro services its global clients with about 80 per cent of its 10,000-strong army of engineers who sit in India. The remaining "onsite" work gets done abroad at client sites.

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