MR.

AZIM PREMJI
Leadership Profiling

A presentation by: Group 4 Amit Shanbhag | Arvind R. Menon | Bagal Mithil | Divya Bagri | Manan Bhati | Neha Agarwala | Priyanka Kathuria | Rumeet Sodhi | Sowmya G | Tuhin Guha |

What you will remember when you retire, is not which quarters you exceeded your sales target or won large deals, but leaders whom you helped in developing. Develop leaders under you, not only because it is good for the business, but because it will give you tremendous personal satisfaction

Agenda
Background

Achievements and Awards

About WIPRO
Long term decisions

Leadership Profiling
Strengths, Weaknesses Behavioral Approach Leadership Grid

Situational Analysis
Transformational Leadership

Family Background
Azim Hashim Premji was born in Mumbai to a

Gujarati Muslim family on July 24, 1945 Belonged to a rich Industrial house. Demise of father M.H. Premji in 1966 Married to Yasmeen Premji and has two sons Rishad and Tariq. Currently resides in Bangalore

Professional Background
Quit Electrical Engineering in Stanford and took

the reigns of Western India Vegetable Product Company at the age of 21

Later renamed to Wipro which is in diversified

businesses
Grew $2 million company to what Wipro is

today(INR 255 bn)

Awards / Achievements
Was the richest Indian from 1999 2005.

2000: The Visvesvaraya Technological University

conferred Sir M. Visvesvaraya Memorial Award on him. 2001: Premji established the Azim Premji Foundation 2003: Business Week featured him on their cover with the sobriquet Indias Tech King 2004: Time magazine listed him as one amongst 100 most influential people in the world.
2004: Business Leader of the Year Economic

Awards / Achievements
2005: He became the first Indian recipient of the

Faraday Medal. 2005: The Government of India conferred upon him the Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian awards in the country. 2007: Business Week listed him amongst the top 30 entrepreneurs in world history 2009: Dataquest honors Azim Premji with Lifetime Achievement Award.
Nonexecutive Director RBI Board
Honorary Doctorate - MAHE

WIPRO LIMITED

About Wipro Limited

Acronym for Western India Palm Refined Oils

Started as a vegetable oil company in 1947

Wipro Businesses
Wipro Technologies Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting Wipro Infotech Wipro Infrastructure Engineering

Azim Premji joined WIPRO when it was a $2 million

Wipro GE Medical Systems Ltd

company 1977: Wipro entered the IT sector (when IBM was asked to leave India), started developing computers 1980: WIPRO moved into software business

Long term Decisions

Foresight to see growth opportunities in the IT Wipro also started manufacturing light bulbs with

General Electric. When GE moved out of India in 1997, Premji saw this as an opportunity for growth. Achieved a significant share of IT services business and FMCG business through a combination of organic and inorganic growth
WiproTech: mPower, InfoCrossing, 3DNetworks, AMS,

etc WCC-LG: Unza, Yardley, etc

Grooming both his sons Rishad & Tariq for future

management Rishad: GM, Treasury and Investor Relations

LEADERSHIP PROFILING

STRENGTHS
Character Personal Integrity Determination & Perseverance Simplicity & Humility Uncompromising

WEAKNESSES
Apolitical

Low media

presence

Visionary Thinking
Passion Ability to Inspire Philanthropy Willingness to Delegate Obsession with

Excellence Committed to

Behavioral Theory
Assumptions
Leaders can be made, not born Successful leadership is based in definable,

learnable behavior
Behavior Theory try to look at what Leaders

actually do and try to learn from him.

Premji is known to be a tough taskmaster & very

demanding. Premji finds difficult to relinquish control.

80% plus stake in Wipro The Vivek Paul Incident

Leadership Grid
1,9 ACCOMODATING Yield & Comply 9,9 SOUND Contribute & Commit

People orientation

Country Club

Team Leader

Middle of the Road

Impoverished Produce or Perish 9,1 CONTROLLING Direct & Dominate Task orientation

1,1 INDIFFERENT Evade and Elude

Situational Leadership Model

Supporting

Coaching

Relationship Behavior

Delegating

Directing

Task behavior

Azim Premji and Situational Leadership

Directive: vegetable oils and soap business IT

sector Coaching: Emphasis on training and mentorship Supportive: customer orientation through reorganization Delegating:
setting up of task force post Vivek Paul Effective recruitment

Transformational Leadership
Transcends short term goals, focuses on intrinsic

needs Leader takes a visionary position, inspires people to follow

Characteristics Visionary Strategic Thinker Communicator Change Agent Team Builder Social Architect/ Culture Builder

Visionary
No one should doubt his ability to fulfill his

strategic vision. Azim Premji proves that, the most important thing needed for an organizational success is, a vision accompanied by a good leadership
Sensed an opportunity in IT and transformed a

vanaspati and soap maker into a IT giant Next big step into the ecology sector

Strategic Thinker
Looks at the big picture, the holistic view than just

being happy about the present performance.

Did not have short-term approach towards IT Selects key people very carefully First one to use industry-academia collaboration in

IT industry

Communicator
A tough employer, expects his employees to be

competent and does not tolerate lies or deception from anyone Walks the talk
example, his commitment towards saving and

judiciously using energy. It is not uncommon to see the 63-year-old chairman of Wipro switching off the lights before leaving office.
Azim Premji's 8 steps to Excellence brings out

his beliefs

Change agent
He is one of the worlds finest examples of a

change leader/agent. Never content to let things remain as they are even if it seems very comfortable.
1966 sudden demise of father, age of 21 took

charge single vision, focus on success. Wipro grown from a small producer of cooking oil to a colossus by Indian standards CEO Vivek Paul left need to change. Sub companies formed, complete reorganisation

Team Builder
Premji firmly believes that ordinary people are

capable of extraordinary things Key to this creating highly charged teams. He takes a personal interest in developing teams and leaders. He invests significant time as a faculty in Wipro's leadership development programs. (Wipro Leaders Quality Survey, 1992) Training utmost importance to the organization. Leadership training is provided at the entry level and continues as the employee scales the heights of the corporate hierarchy.

Social architect/Culture Builder

"The future will see significant changes in technology, economy and society. But what will remain unchanged is the need of the customer for an organization with human face. We have built Wipro with the core human values in mind, along with integrity, innovative solutions and value for money, and we will use these values to grow into the future."

Social architect/Culture Builder

Premji created a culture that thrives under intense

competitive pressure. Two core principles:

The chairman is not king Share authority and responsibility with subordinates
Zero-politics culture Open and honest disagreements encouraged

The objectives of quality must be ingrained within

the culture of the company, which is, in turn, passed on to customers and ties back to business objectives.
1st Indian software company to embrace Six Sigma 1st software services company in the world to achieve SEI CMM

Level 5
st

Social architect/Culture Builder

He refuses to give bribes to get his work done.

He had to wait 18 months to get an electrical

substation for the vegetable oil manufacturing unit. The company incurred very high costs as they had to run the unit on captive power generation for 20 months. But he preferred the extra financial liability rather than abolish his ideals and values.

THANK YOU
Excellence is not an act, its a habit