Wipro to double Australian manpower

[arunkathir]

Buoyed by its success in the lucrative information technology outsourcing market in Australia, Bangalore-based Wipro is planning to d
ouble its Australian employees, according to a report in a business daily.

The country's third largest IT company, presently has about 90 Australians on its rolls. The company, according to the news report, plans to increase the number of local employees to 250 by the end of the current financial year.

Wipro recently won an outsourcing contract estimated to be worth around $100 million from Australia's biggest brewer Fosters. Last week, the company is reported to have bagged a multi-million dollar IT outsourcing contract from ING Australia, a leading fund manager and life insurer in the continent.

Compared to its rivals TCS and Infosys, Wipro is relatively new to the Australian market. The company currently is said to have over 700 Wipro employees dedicated to Australian clients. Of these, about 450 people are in Australia, including 300 people at its two development centres in Melbourne and Adelaide. Besides, there are close to 350 employees at its various offshore locations in India, working for its Australian clients.

At a time when new business is increasingly becoming tough to come by, Australia has emerged as a great opportunity for the outsourcing vendors. Other recent outsourcing contracts awarded by Australian companies include the $1.2 billion deal from Telstra and the over $100-million contract from Origin Energy.