Success Story of Azim Premji Founder Chairman of Wipro
Success Story of Azim Prem Ji: Azim Hashim Premji, an engineer from India, a businessman and chairman of one the largest IT firm i.e., WIPRO. He is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of India and has a position in world. WIPRO is one of the most successful start ups of India. let’s have a look on this-
Personal Life
Azim Premji was born in the year 1945 on July 24 in the city of Mumbai. He is natively from Gujarati family. He belongs to muslim Shia community. He is the son of M.H. Premji who had established western India products that would manufacture hydrogenated vegetable fats and oil, hair care soaps and ethnic ingredient based toiletries. He has done his schooling from St. Mary’s School, Mumbai and at the age of 21, he attended Stanford University, California, to complete his studies in electrical engineering. But he could not further his studies and had to return to take over the family business after the sudden death of his father in 1966. After that he had to join his family business after his father’s death. The company was Western India Products (he later renamed it as ‘WIPRO’) and started expanding it to developing light bulbs with some electric, baby care products and shampoos and many other consuming products. In the year, 1975, it began manufacturing hydraulic cylinders and truck tippers. In the year 1980 the company entered in IT sector and under a special license from Sential, it started developing computer hardware, software and many other computer items. Wipro’s has won PCMM level 5 and SEI CMM level 5 certification and has remained among the world’s top 100 IT firms. It is also one of the world’s largest BPO firm and employs more than 25,000 employees.
Awards and Prizes
- Business week named his as one of the greatest entrepreneur for making WIPRO one of the world’s fastest developing companies.
- In the year 2000, he received an honorary doctorate from the Manipal Academy Of Higher education.
- In the year 2004, time magazine kept him among its 100 most influential people in the world.
- He was awarded with Padma Bhushan in the year 2005.
- In the year 2008, on 58th convocation ceremony of the University, AMU awarded him with a Doctors of Letters.
- In the year 2009, Wesleyan University honored him with doctorate for his philanthropic work.
Some Of The Philanthropic Works
Azim Premji has contributed to establish Azim Premji foundation and has donated $2 billion worth shares.
According to Azim Premji Foundation, it ‘Aims at making a tangible impact on identified social issues by working in active partnership with the Government and other related sectors of society’ and programmers offered are mainly for developing effective and scalable models that significantly improve the quality of learning in the school and ensure satisfactory ownership by the community in the management of the school.
This foundation dedicates itself to the cause of Universalization of elementary education for India. It has successfully improved the quality of general education, mainly in rural schools. He was named as Bill Gates of India by Forbes magazine for his charity work. In the year 2011, he was the 5th richest man in India, according to Forbes Magazine 2011, he is the world’s 36th richest person with $13 billion fortune.
The 3rd richest man in India, Azim Premji is these days perhaps more known for his philanthropy than his wealth or business skills. He derives his wealth or business approx. 74% ownership of WIPRO, the third largest Indian services company.
In the year 1991, WIPRO further diversified into the manufacturing of lamps, powders, oil-based natural ingredients, medical and diagnostic equipment and IT hardware products such as printers and scanners etc. in the 1990s. It also entered the IT services busness in the 1990s and was among first to experiment with offshore IT services.
Later, in the year 1999 the company also entered into a joint venture with KPN to provide internet services in India.
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Azim Premji Now a Days
He is currently the chairman of the board of WIPRO and for a brief time between 2005 and 2008 was also the CEO. Under his leadership, Wipro’s earning grew from $2 million in early 1960’s to US $7 billion currently, with IT contributing around 75% of total revenue.
The exit in the year 2005 of CEO Vivek Paul, who played a key role in making WIPRO a billion dollar enterprise, led to Azim Premji becoming CEO till 2008, followed by change in corporate structure that led to the installation of joint CEO’s till 2011, when there was a reversion in the company back to a single CEO.
Recently one more post added as COO to help and assist CEO to focus on global operations and future strategies. The IT business’s top management has not been that stable with growth reaching a plateau recently.
Azim Premji has his own family wealth management company, Premji invest, that manages around US $ 1 billion of his personal wealth and invests in public as well as private companies.
He is one of India’s most well known and respected business leaders and has received many awards during his lifetime, most notably India’s 2nd highest civilian honor for his contribution to business.
He was also selected as one of the 30 greatest Global entrepreneur of all time by business week and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
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