Wipro Technologies: Bharti Airtel’s Jagbir Singh Casts Himself as the ‘Painkiller’ for Customers and His Business

As Jagbir Singh surveys his role to design, build and operate the network for India’s largest mobile phone services provider, he knows that success is based on understanding two areas — the customer experience and his company’s business needs. Singh is chief technology officer (CTO) and director of the Network Services Group (NSG), India & South Asia at Bharti Airtel, the world’s third-largest mobile phone services provider (after China Mobile and Vodafone), with operations in 20 countries. He oversees more than $4 billion in annual spending, based on capital expenditures and operating expenses.

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The Boston Consulting Group: How Lean Services Lead to Lower Costs and Happier Customers

Toyota’s lean production system revolutionized manufacturing by introducing strategies that slashed wasteful practice to deliver higher quality products more efficiently. While lean has become the norm in the manufacturing space, service providers rightly wonder: ‘How can human interactions be standardized so that waste can be cut back without alienating customers?’ Now, service providers are finding the path. Devesh Raj, a partner and managing director at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), has worked with many service providers -- including banks, airlines, hospitals and call centers -- to implement lean strategies. In a recent interview with Knowledge@Wharton, he shared his insights about how lean processes are changing services for the better and steps executives can take to introduce the practices.

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PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP -- People Performance: How CFOs Can Build the Bench Strength They Need Today . . . and Tomorrow

Top CFOs know they are only as strong as their teams. From treasury to financial planning and analysis, their finance managers have a shared vision of being valued contributors in strategic discussions – adding insight and analysis at critical junctures of decision-making. How can CFOs attract, retain, and motivate finance talent to be much more than number-crunchers? PwC and faculty at Wharton share insight on how top finance organizations can rise to the challenge.

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Wipro Technologies: Accountability in Health Care -- Collaboration and Analytics Are Key

The health care industry continues to face demands for cost control, while needing to show  improvements in quality of care. Policy makers are taking the lead. The U.S. Accountable Care Act (Obamacare), signed into law in March 2010, identifies these as its core goals. While there seems to be a near equal split between ACA enthusiasts and critics, the “trend towards accountability in healthcare is irreversible,” says to Sangita Singh, a senior vice president and global business head at Wipro Technologies. Health care and life sciences companies must reinvent business strategies to survive and grow, says Patricia Danzon, Wharton professor of health care management.

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PricewaterhouseCoopers: How Should Global Companies Communicate Currency Risk?

Large swings in currency valuations can play havoc with financial reports. A company may have performed well in the latest quarter in a local currency. But if that currency lost value against the home currency, the translated performance can quickly move from good to lackluster or even into the red. The whole dynamic can work in reverse, of course, and provide the appearance of strong growth where it does not exist. While many companies do a good job reporting on currency volatility, a sizable number appear still to be grappling with the issue. In this paper, experts from Wharton and PricewaterhouseCoopers offer some suggestions on how to cope.

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Wipro Technologies: EMC’s Sanjay Mirchandani Serves Up Ready-to-Go Business Intelligence

Sanjay Mirchandani, chief information officer at EMC Corp., has a straightforward plan for providing outside clients with leading-edge information technology services: Prove the value of new concepts by first implementing them in-house. Mirchandani begins by engaging EMC employees and business units in order to assess their needs and preferences.

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Wipro Technologies: Assessing the Bounties and Boundaries in Big Data Analytics

Many companies are finding a huge upside potential in data analytics to grow revenues and profits, and cut costs. Sharper analysis of rich data from an expanding range of sources is enabling more cost-effective marketing and improved customer engagement. As a result. companies are investing in information management infrastructure to extract the gains. Yet, data analytics cannot be effective beyond a point, and companies need to keep their approaches grounded in reality, say Peter Fader, Wharton marketing professor, and K. R. Sanjiv, global head of analytics and information management at Wipro Technologies.

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PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP -- Re-energizing Finance: The Organization Challenge

Like many other parts of companies, finance organizations haven’t been spared recent belt-tightening. They’ve been trimmed down and streamlined, and in many cases, are shadows of their former selves. Doing more with less has become a new mantra. Yet whatever the size of their teams, the onus is on CFOs today to leverage every part of the finance organization to deliver value beyond traditional transaction processing and control. PwC and faculty at Wharton share insight on how top finance organizations can rise to the challenge.

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Wipro Technologies: Balancing Power with Responsibility as Technology Makes for a Richer, Simpler World

The debate is widening on whether technology is making our lives simpler or more complicated. Technology is certainly putting more power in the hands of users, allowing them to work faster and safer, and cut costs. Yet, technology can also be a treadmill that is hard to stop, and it can have potential adverse impacts on health, safety and the environment. In this white paper, Anurag Srivastava, chief technology officer of Wipro Technologies in Bangalore, India, and Shawndra Hill, Wharton professor of operations and information management, offer insights into how to use technology responsibly.

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Wipro Technologies: AkzoNobel’s CIO Pieter Schoehuijs

Rugby is the sport that best defines the style of Pieter Schoehuijs, the CIO of AkzoNobel, the Dutch multinational maker of decorative paints and specialty chemicals. Schoehuijs, 47, likes rugby because it is a team sport whose members bring different skills. “Some people are very strong, some are very fast and some kick well,” he says. “They have to work together in a concerted effort and need to be very dedicated to be successful.” In this article he shares his insights into what drives him on the job.

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