1. What has Sudip Nandy done to enhance Wipro’s global effectiveness?

2. How effective do you predict Wipro will be? Why? 

3. What additional steps do you think Nandy could take to further develop the business by leveraging the differences in the organization?

Vivek Paul was hired to run the IT division of Wipro, and to develop Wipro Technologies into a leading provider of  software services to the world’s largest corporations. He was a native of India, yet was educated and had worked in the United States for many years. Paul faced a number of challenges in achieving this goal, but the most immediate challenge was hiring key talent - someone at the helm of Wipro Technologies Europe who had established relationships and held credibility with the employees at Wipro Technologies’ Indian operation centers. He wanted someone who knew the Indian corporate culture and who had the cross-cultural sophistication that comes from extended expatriate experience to be the director of Wipro Technologies Europe. Sudip Nandy was the perfect fit for such an assignment. 

This story illustrates the cultural challenges of transforming an Indian company to enhance its global effectiveness. This case discusses some of the methods Wipro and Nandy used to leverage diversity in the workforce to create a competitive advantage for the firm. It further describes some of Nandy’s ideas for business growth. 

The Wipro case series illustrates the importance of national culture and ethnicity issues to everything a large corporation does--including its own culture of origin, the cultures of its potential customers, and the cultures of its employees. The cases lend themselves well to the unfolding of the Hofstede cultural model during class.