Wipro's Japan connection, Sakakibara way

BANGALORE: When Eisuke Sakakibara,former Japanese vice minister of finance for international affairs, came tointerview Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro and other high profile leaders in Indiafor a Japanese TV channel in the late 90s, little did he think that that hewould become the first non-Indian board member in Wipro and a de-factoambassador for Indo-Japanese businesses."When Premji asked me tobecome a director in his company, I told him that I was not an expert on IT buta specialist in foreign exchange. But I was interested in knowing more aboutIndia and decided to come here to learn more," Sakakibara, the first Japanesenational to be on board of any Indian company, recalls.For Wipro,Sakikibara''s inclusion in the board of directors (BoD) was the first major stepin taking its BoD multi-national and multi-cultural, three years ago."There has been a weak link between our two countries," saysSakakibara. Apart from geographical distance, Japan''s strong relationship withthe US and India''s equally dominating relationship with the US pitched the twocountries more as business rivals than as collaborators. "Now, things arechanging," points out Sakakibara."Japan has always specialised increating innovative applications, in consumer or gaming segments but there wouldbe more synergy if we team up with software skills from India," hesays.Today, business process outsourcing (BPO) is also being lookedat favourably too in Japan. "Traditionally Japan was averse to outsourcing, Butnow, Shinsei Bank is leading the way in outsourcing and a number of othercompanies including manufacturing houses are looking at this to cut costs andincrease efficiency," Sakakibara noted.When Indian IT firms areaiming to be top global players, a foreign flavour has to be injected at theboard level. Infosys took this route pretty early. Wipro has followed first byplucking Vivek Paul from GE and then going where none has tread before,Japan.