Mori plays golf at Infosys, learns IT at Wipro

Fakir Chand in Bangalore

Tuesday was a historic day for the Indian Information Technology industry when Japanese Prime Minister Yashiro Mori had a tryst with two Bangalore-based leading software companies, Infosys and Wipro, which are owned and run entirely by Indians with global players as their major customers.

On the second day of his visit to Bangalore, the first by a Japanese prime minister, Mori drove all the way from the heart of the Garden City to the Electronics City to first enter the Infosys campus, where hundreds of young techies greeted him with a thunderous applause.

In view of Mori's tight schedule, the 30-minute trip to each of the two IT companies was not only brisk but also business-like. In fact, Mori was running behind schedule in getting back to the city as he took time off to play golf for a short while at the mini-golf course within the Infosys campus.

When Mori was about to board the car on his way out after all the applause, welcome speeches, listening to the pep talk on IT and Infosys by its chairman N R Narayana Murthy, the Japanese premier returned to the golf course to tee off.

Mori's perfect hit saw the ball soaring out of the campus into the neighbouring block, which made the thousand-odd Infosysians shout out: "Once more, please!" Mori's sportive act has caught everyone unawares.

"For a moment, I was taken aback, wondering whether I am at a cricket match or a soccer match," Mori said, looking at the crowd.

Enthused by the spontaneous cheers and clapping from the gallery for his excellent teeing, he ran all the way towards the techies acknowledging the applause. Mori said: "If only we had such cheering crowds like here, our party's candidates would have swept the polls with a landslide victory."

During his brief visit to Infosys, Mori had a tele conference with Tanaka Youichi, the chief of a Japanese company OKI in Tokyo. OKI is one of the Far East companies for which Infosys offers software solutions.

Through his interpreter, Mori conveyed to the impressive gathering that India and Japan should develop a complementary relationship in the world of information technology and science.

In response to N R Narayana Murthy's comment that 'Japan was the jewel of Asia', Mori remarked: "The jewel should be polished, and India should do it."

In stark contrast to his playful moments at Infosys, Mori was studied and business-like at the nearby Wipro Technologies in the Software Technology Park of India, with his attention on the speeches given by a couple of Wipro officials and its chairman Azim H Premji.

Though he was behind schedule, Mori lost no time in walking briskly into the imposing Wipro building with his entourage in tow to have a first-hand account of the $240-million global company's foray into Japan and the progress it has made in grabbing the infotech business in his country.

Wipro czar Premji took Mori on a guided tour of his tech park and explained what the global IT company was doing to expand its business opportunities in Mori's homeland.

Mori showed keen interest in getting to know the kind of training and learning Wipro's software professionals were undergoing to boost the company's prospects in Japan.

Mori climbed all the way to the first floor of the premises to light a lamp at the 'development centre', set up by Wipro for two of its major Japanese clients, viz., NEC Corporation and Daiwa Institute of Research. He spent about 10 minutes hearing the translated versions in his language about the project activities undertaken by the centre.

Mori's enormous interest as well as his general awareness of the field was revealed when he sought clarification on some of the hi-tech subjects. He also spent a long time at the company's 'learning centre', an in-house facility for imparting training on the latest software technologies.

Premji also explained to Mori how Wipro was going all out to train his employees in learning the Japanese language and culture for expanding its already-established operations in Japan. The two programmes are Shimpo (First Step) and Kokoro (Heart). The first one is a one-year intensive course, which covers Kanji script, grammar, phonetics, and is aimed at level-3 and level-2 of Japanese language proficiency test, conducted by the Japan Foundation. The second programme is a three-month intensive course.

"Wipro's long-term commitment to the Japanese market has resulted in our setting up a wholly owned subsidiary, Wipro Japan KK. We have also invested in Japanese language and culture training programmes to enable our software professionals to bridge the cultural barrier."

Premji said that his company was delighted that the Japanese prime minister had responded to his invitation, which he had extended to Mori during his visit to Japan last month. "Wipro's experience in Japan has been very good since 1995. Today, over 600 Wipro professionals work on Japanese projects, and 10 per cent of our exports are for Japanese companies."

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