RIYADH, 3 November — India’s largest IT company with a clientele of several Fortune 500 companies has entered the Saudi market with a “commitment to build a strong base in the Kingdom.”
Azim Premji, chairman of the IT company giant Wipro Corporation and reputedly the richest Indian, yesterday announced contracts worth over SR11 million with some major companies in the Kingdom’s petrochemical and health care sectors.
Premji also said he had held ground-breaking talks at the Ministry of Planning and Saudi Telecom Company with a view to identifying new areas of cooperation. “The response was highly encouraging,” he said.
This is the first visit to the Kingdom of the IT magnate, whose company, capitalized at over $6.5 billion, is the largest listed company in India and the New York Stock Exchange. Though the value of the contracts was described as modest by Wipro’s standard, Premji said he hoped to pick up $15 million (over SR 56 million) worth of contracts in the next 11 months. “We are committed to building a strong base in Saudi Arabia. We would like to cooperate in developing IT skills among the Saudis to make them self-sufficient in this sector,” Premji told a press conference attended by Prince Turki ibn Abdullah, president, Dar Al Riyadh Group, and Indian Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad.
Premji arrived here on Friday night on a working visit and held talks with Minister of Planning Khaled Al-Gosaibi, STC President Khaled Al-Molhem and the chief executives of IT companies and other major organizations in the Kingdom.
The Planning Ministry is already engaged in drawing up plans for the future vision of the Saudi economy in which e-commerce will be a major driver.
Paying tributes to Dar Al Riyadh as Wipro’s marketing arm in the Kingdom, Premji said that thanks to its initiative, his company has landed prestigious contracts, including an end-to-end ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) implementation project from Saudi Polyolefins Company, as well as a full-fledged ERP implementation project for Riyadh Pharma and Al Haya Medical Co.
“We won these projects against global competition,” he observed. Premji said his company had deployed over 50 highly skilled consultants on these projects.
“We are looking at the possibility of setting up our own office in the Kingdom.”
In reply to a question, Ambassador Ahmad said India had set up some 30 joint ventures in the petrochemical, industrial, services and other sectors. He said the IT sector best projected India’s image abroad. Since the Kingdom was according priority to information technology, there was good scope for expanding relations in this area, he said.
