Azim Premji

I don't think being a Muslim or being a non-Muslim has been an advantage or disadvantage.

I was studying at Stanford University with two quarters left to go before receiving an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering. Then, I got the telephone call from my mother. I had no choice. I went home, and I jumped into the company feet first, right from day one. There was no time to grieve my father.

I inherited the company from my father after he died very unexpectedly from a heart attack in 1966. He was just 51 years old, and I was 21.

Private sector cannot substitute the role of the government in primary education.

We understand how to build and manage businesses that involve technology, engineering, and people at a large scale on a global platform.

Our business model is primarily that of consulting, engineering, system integration, and managed services.

Despite widely differing perspectives and agendas, there seems to be a remarkable global consensus that has built up over a fairly short period of time that climate change and ecology is one of the truly defining issues for humanity.

Ecology and economy are becoming inextricably entwined, and the world is becoming more conscious of this fact.

The job of nation building, the job of nation leadership in a difficult, complex coalition has worked.

The importance of this success of Wipro has become manifold more, because it's the success of Wipro that enables the possibility of making a difference to some of the most disadvantaged people in the world.

What is excellence? It is about going a little beyond what we expect from ourselves. Part of the need for excellence is imposed on us externally by our customers. Our competition keeps us on our toes, especially when it is global in nature.

Excellence can be as strong a uniting force as solid vision.

My dad told me he wanted me to join in the business, but nothing was firm. He was quite young when he died, so we hadn't talked about it in depth.

People are beginning to realize that education is power, that education is money, that education is an opportunity.

This whole issue of Hindu-Muslim in India is completely overhyped.

Customers are now driven by trying to optimize value.

The customer is a remarkably selfish person: He takes the relationship to where the execution is in his favor.

People are realistic enough to appreciate what the market values of different people are.

The old boys' club of closed tennis court relationships is on the way out.

I feel that business leaders with their ability to create businesses, with their ability to scale, need to play an important role in social service.

I have never had the need or thrill for being wealthy.

The success of Wipro has made me a wealthy person.

Even if I was to give my children a small part of my wealth, it would be more than they can digest in many lifetimes.

We run courses for government school teachers on Sundays. These teachers pay for their own food and stay; the kind of commitment you find in these people is remarkable.

When you are under pressure, you make the bold steps faster; you don't make the bold steps slower.

We believe that two people who have worked together for more than 10 years and been in the company for more than 15 years would be able to work very well as a team.

It is the strength of our culture that we can have Sonia Gandhi, who is Catholic, a Sikh prime minister, and a Muslim president.

The U.K. and the U.S. are quite similar in that they have high-productivity, English-speaking workforces who don't mind working long hours. Working in those countries is not a problem.

In any software work, you have IT consultancy competence required to build the systems.

We get first-rate faculty members from the leading engineering and science institutes to train our people.

To have strongly integrated managers who have a deep understanding of technology is a rare and difficult combination to build. You have to invest a lot in selecting and training these people.

Technical people tend to be more 'techie,' and management people are more 'managerial.'

Our managers need to have a strong integration of managerial skills and technical understanding. One cannot substitute for the other.

The principal challenge we face is to go up the value- and domain-skill chain and build a strong consultancy front end and, also, to globalize our leadership much more.

Interestingly, many Indian companies where there's a father-and-son combination are being run as joint CEO organizations because the father has not given up running the company and the son is actively involved in running the company, and there is division of responsibilities.

What we are doing is we are putting in significant training into the people we have currently to upgrade their skill resources, upgrade the presentation resources, and upgrade what we expect from them in terms of not business as usual.

You cannot mandate philanthropy. It has to come from within, and when it does, it is deeply satisfying.

I am particularly interested in primary education because the state of affairs in primary education in this country is a cause for concern.

Western companies want access to Indian talent. That is why they outsource; that is why they come to India to set up base.

The West is not producing enough engineers.

You need a commitment which is long term and a commitment to leadership, because that's the only way you build excellence.

You can do clean business in India.

You have got the right strategy, the right geography; you have got the right customers. You need to prioritise them better; we need to grow them better, mind them better. We need to give more value to them, and we need to execute a lot of areas in the organisation where we are not executing.

Saudi Arabia has proved to be the growth engine for Wipro.

Wipro Arabia is a joint venture company with Dar Al Riyadh, a well-diversified group in Saudi Arabia.

We are partners to leading organizations across industries and have delivered marquee and transformational programs.

Wipro is one of the fastest growing companies regionally and globally, and I am personally very excited with our journey in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

When I took over the family business, it had already been a publicly traded company for 20 years. During one of the first annual meetings I attended, one shareholder stood up and advised me and everyone in attendance that I should resign.

I strongly believe that those of us who are privileged to have wealth should contribute significantly to try and create a better world for the millions who are far less privileged.

The important thing about outsourcing or global sourcing is that it becomes a very powerful tool to leverage talent, improve productivity and reduce work cycles.