Dr.Sheth introducing Azim Premji while audience and Azim seen listening

Atlanta, GA: A select group of prominent community activists, business leaders and media personalities of Atlanta Indian community held a dinner meeting with Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro, who ranked among the 100 most influential people in the world, by Time magazine in 2004. Azim Premji has led Wipro to grow from a fledgling $2 million hydrogenated cooking fat company in 1966 to a $1.76 billion IT Services organization serving customers across the globe.

TiE Atlanta chapter hosted the dinner meeting with Azim Premji on January 29, at Palace Restaurant. Azim Premji was here for a couple of days in connection with the setting up of Wipro’s first American software development center in Atlanta. He explained various issues that were happening both in India and the United States to the well-attended gathering at the dinner meeting.

Azim Premji patted Atlantans saying, “I am always warmed about Atlanta and Georgia and it will be a pleasure to be in Georgia. I have visited many places in the world. What really stands out in Atlanta is warmness of the people and genuineness of community, customers and journalists, and I feel at home here as you find in Atlanta. It is really wonderful feeling.”

Speaking about the setting up of Wipro’s national development center in Atlanta, he shared various reasons for coming to Atlanta. He said that Atlanta really stood first in their major short-listing process. One of the important factors that stood out in favor of Atlanta was the hunger of young people here. “That is important to a successful organization such as Wipro. Also the support of the Georgia government encouraged them to set up the national center in Atlanta,” he pointed.

Azim Premji said that his company has grassy plans and hoped that things would move the way that should be. “There will be larger than what Wipro has announced today, and what some of us have discussed today with the officials here. We are quite bullish about what we can achieve in Atlanta. We already have customer base here. We intend to make those customers larger than what they have today. Wipro’s intention is to build a cadre of Americas, who really become part of Wipro,” he added.

Azim Premji also answered a couple of questions from audience.

Replying to a question on the qualities required for a successful entrepreneur and successful businessman, Azim Premji assessed that to be a successful entrepreneur or successful businessman was to have full belief and conviction in what he was trying to do and stayed with the course. One might find lots of ups and downs. The true success would come if the entrepreneur stayed with the course. The course could be changed when things change, but should stay with the idea, and advised not to give up because of running into obstacles. It was natural that entrepreneurs always run into obstacles.

Speaking about leadership, Azim Premji said that a very high integrity was a prerequisite quality for any organization and it must be set by its leadership. “If the leadership does not have immaculate, transparent and 100 percent integrity, then they cannot build integrity in the organization,” he noted.

He said that the second quality of a leadership was passion, a very important one in terms of making a success in life. Third one was winning spirit. Every one should compete to win. The people who, were competent to win, would rise to top. Further leadership should have self-confidence and ability to learn the lessons from mistakes. He also discussed certain strengths and weaknesses of education system both in India and the United States of America. He told the audience that he had the benefit of having undergraduate education in the US. He said: “My assessment about the strength of American teaching system is it teaches you to think; it teaches you to challenge. Even at undergraduate school level, it gives you an exposure to much more cross-kept content and diversity. The major weakness is that it is diverting a lot of priority in technical education. It is diverting a lot of focus from technical education. America has more scientists and engineers. Now products are more technical, services are more technical and more technical background is required. But unfortunately no government is successful to make this transformation. Hence the business community should involve in education to be able to impart this excitement for people to go more into technical and math careers.

He explained how Wipro was working extensively in education in engineering schools of India. He said: “One of the goals Wipro has set is to upgrade 10,000 professors in engineering colleges in India with in three years of time. The reason for this is that Wipro recruits more than 12,000 students from 350 colleges across India every year. Wipro is trying to set a model where the company shares all their experience and material with all their competitors with a view to making their competitors also to be part of this initiative. This enables to get much higher involvement from private industry to be able to get the quality upgrade of teachers and students in engineering colleges to a greater level.” He opined that American leadership has to get involved in this. Otherwise, the United States would find huge disparity in the demand and supply of talented people. “People having H1B visas are sought after by American corporations. Hence Wipro is trying to recruit in the US,” he added.
 

Azim Premji with Dr. Sheth family

Earlier, Dr. Jagdish Sheth, a world authority in the field of marketing, founder of India China and America Institute, and Charles H. Kellstadt, Chair of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, introduced Azim Premji to the audience. In his welcome address, Dr. Sheth described Azim Premji as a living legend. “Premji has a knack of identifying talent, getting more out of talent in that person, and human practical transformation. I have never seen anyone, who could mould what he does with human beings. It is my experience that I have seen hundreds of successful entrepreneurs, who have started their career at Wipro. It is a great starting. People tell me how Wipro created a culture. Secondly he is a constant learner that a great sign of leadership. Learning from everybody and every thing constantly. Third thing, wealth has not affected him. He is equally comfortable with presidents, prime ministers, etc., but also with the people working on the streets,” Dr. Sheth, concluded.

Azim Premiji has also spoken to India Tribune explaining the details about Wipro center in Atlanta and about the economic boom in India.

Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro with Ravi R._Ponangi