Wipro to set up facility to train staff on new tech

The country’s third-largest software exporter is in the process of setting up an internal facility to train employees on futuristic technologies.

According to sources who have been approached to help Wipro set up this academy, the focus areas will be the Internet of Things (IoT), social, mobile, analytics, cloud (SMAC) and open source technology. There will also be comprehensive training around using cloud computing to port enterprise applications used by banks and other companies.

“We, along with two other companies, have been approached to help train their employees quickly on these technologies,” said the CEO of one of the companies, who did not wish to be named as the deal has not yet come through.

A Wipro spokesperson said the company has always focused on imparting training in new and niche technologies to its current and potential employees. “We have long-standing partnerships and have invested in platform owners, organisations and academic and research organisations engaged in future technologies,” the spokesperson said.

While any employee who joins Wipro has to undergo two months of training, the company is also looking to start training its Advanced Technologies Group in these areas, on top of existing ones.

With the advent of cloud computing, which helps a company to use software on a subscription basis, Wipro’s outsourcing clients have been saying that future projects would be awarded on the basis of how the company can port different enterprise applications to the cloud. Traditionally, a company used to develop a software application, maintain licences and update software on a client’s premises, all of which is changing.

Technologies such as IoT, which is industry parlance for every device having the capability to access the Internet, open source and SMAC are now gathering steam.

“With SMAC and the Internet of Things, there is a fundamental shift in the way a company is looking at an outsourcing service provider,” said Sundararaman Viswanathan, Manager-Consulting, Zinnov.

Indian outsourcing providers are hopping on to the IoT bandwagon as global technology companies are building products that have these capabilities built in, according to industry watchers.

A few months ago, IBM Labs in India was working on a system that will provide emergency healthcare help through IoT and remotely manage patients.

HCL Technologies demonstrated ways to integrate IoT on Oracle software, at the recently-concluded Oracle Open World.