Hello, everyone. I am Rishad Premji, Chairman of Wipro Limited. On behalf of our Board of directors, I welcome all of you to the 78th Annual General Meeting. This meeting is being conducted through video conference as per the circulars issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and the Securities and Exchange Board of India. Since the necessary quorum is present via video conferencing, the meeting is officially constituted. I now declare this meeting open. Before getting into the proceedings of the meeting, let me take a moment and introduce you to people who are present here today. To my right is Mr. Azim Premji, founder, chairman. Mr. Deepak Satwalekar, independent director. Mr. Patrick Dupuis, independent director. Ms. Tulsi Naidu, independent director, and Dr. Patrick Ennis, independent director. And to my left is Mr. Srini Pallia, our Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Ms. Aparna Iyer, Chief Financial Officer, Mr.
N.S. Kannan, Independent Director, Ms. Päivi Rekonen, Independent Director, and Mr. Sanaullah Khan, our Company Secretary. In addition, Mr. Anand Subramanian, partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP, statutory auditor, and Mr. V. Sridharan and Mr. Pradeep Kulkarni from V. Sridharan and Associates, secretarial auditor, have also joined us today. I request Sana Khan, Company Secretary, to read the arrangements made for the members at this 78th annual, Annual General Meeting. Sana?
Thank you, Rishad. Dear members, welcome to the 78th Annual General Meeting of Wipro Limited. The company has enabled the members to participate at the 78th AGM through the video conferencing facility. The proceedings of this Annual General Meeting are also being webcast live for all the members as per the details provided in the notice. The proceedings of this meeting are also being recorded for compliance purposes. In accordance to the provisions of the Companies Act 2013 and the SEBI listing regulations, the members have been provided with the facility to exercise their right to vote by electronic means, both through remote e-voting facility and e-voting at the Annual General Meeting. The remote e-voting facility was made available to all members holding shares as on the cutoff date July 11th, 2014... 2024.
During the period commencing from 9 AM IST on Sunday, July fourteenth, two thousand and twenty-four, till 5 PM IST on Wednesday, July seventeenth, two thousand and twenty-four. The remote e-voting facility has been blocked on July seventeenth, 2024, at 5 PM IST. The members joining the meeting through video conferencing facility have not already cast their vote, they can again, by means of remote e-voting, cast their vote or through the InstaPoll e-voting facility provided at this meeting. The members who have already cast their vote by remote e-voting facility prior to the AGM shall not be entitled to cast their vote once again. The Board of directors has appointed Mr. V. Sridharan, partner of V. Sridharan & Associates, as the scrutinizer for this meeting.
Based on the reports of the scrutinizer, the combined results of remote e-voting and the e-voting done at the meeting today will be announced and displayed on the website of the company, and will also be submitted to the stock exchanges as per the requirements under the SEBI listing regulations. The register of director shareholding, register of contracts, copies of audited financial statements, are available for inspection to the members. Members seeking to inspect such documents can send an email to corp-secretarial@wipro.com. I now request Mr. Rishad Premji, Chairman, to continue with the proceedings of the meeting.
Thank you, Sana. I'm satisfied that all the efforts feasible under the circumstances have been made by the company to enable members to participate and vote on the items being considered at this meeting. Before we take up items as per the notice, I would like to update the shareholders on our company's performance during the financial year 2023-2024, and give a general outlook for the IT sector. Dear shareholders, a very warm welcome to all of you again. Before I get into the year gone by, I want to formally welcome Srini Pallia to his first AGM. Srini, as all of you know, took over as our CEO and Managing Director in April this year, and I'm incredibly excited and confident in him leading Wipro forward.
Let me first talk about the financial highlights of financial year 2024, and then I will then share my views on the broader environment. Financial year 2024 has been a challenging year for us as a company. The global economic fluctuations this past year have affected our clients' technology spending and led to uncertainty in market demands. However, despite these challenges, I believe the fundamentals of our business remain unchanged, and we remain fully committed to investing in our future. For financial year 2024, we reported revenues of $10.8 billion, representing a decrease of 4.4% year-on-year. Our net income stood at $1.3 billion. The IT services operating margin for the year was 16.1%, which is a 50 basis points expansion over financial year 2023.
Earnings per share for the year were at INR 20.89, which is the equivalent of $0.25, showing a year-on-year increase of 0.8%. Additionally, our operating cash flow reached a record high of INR 176.2 billion, which is the equivalent of $2.1 billion, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 34.9% and accounting for 159% of the net income for the year. Although discretionary spending was subdued in the first half of the year, we saw promising signs in our consulting business in the second half, which is a positive early indicator. Just like in past years, we've kept investing in our future. We took a majority share in Aggne, a leading consulting and managed services company, serving the insurance and Insurtech industry.
This strengthens our value proposition in a fast-growing part of the insurance vertical. Now let me talk about AI and how it is creating new opportunities for growth. As you all know, there's a significant shift in how businesses perceive AI, especially generative AI. What was once a topic of curiosity has now become a cornerstone of long-term strategies for creating value. AI presents a distinct opportunity to reshape industries, reimagine experiences, enhance efficiencies, and foster innovation. Our goal is to lead this transformation for our clients as well as within our own organization, Wipro. Last year, I shared with you that AI would be our strategic area of growth for us, and the investments and the intensity has only grown in financial year 2024. We continued to make significant investments in our AI 360-degree strategy throughout 2024.
We are building an AI-powered Wipro, embedding responsible and secure AI into every solution, tool, and process across our organization. We have broadened our strategic partnerships with leading AI players such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Nvidia. Additionally, we've launched our own AI platform through our innovation arm, Lab45, to speed up AI adoption. Developing talent is also crucial to our AI strategy, and I believe a key element for success. Alongside our strategic partners, we have teamed up with leading universities like the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. These partnerships are helping us drive research, strengthen the AI talent pipeline, and upskill our workforce. We have trained over 225,000 employees, starting with myself, in GenAI fundamentals. An additional 30,000 employees have received advanced training tailored to their specific roles.
We have been intentional in serving as client zero for our own AI solutions, disrupting ourselves in the process. We have leveraged our talent to build GenAI-based solutions that streamline our internal processes, create delightful experiences, and boost productivity throughout our company. Let me give you an example. We now, our AI-powered Enterprise Chatbot for self-service, is used by nearly all of our employees and has processed around 6.5 million queries. This significantly boosted productivity in crucial tasks like approvals, onboarding, and other administrative functions, in addition to creating a delightful employee experience. In our business engagements, we have been working with clients across industries to help them navigate their AI journey and build AI strategies that are unique to their specific businesses and their industries. Our industry and consulting-led AI solutions are driving early results within our clients. We've achieved, for example, superior patient outcomes in healthcare.
We've boosted the recommendation for financial advisors. We've driven cost and operational efficiencies in industries like life sciences and transportation. We've had many such successful client engagements, and our intent to do more is growing. We realize that widespread AI adoption demands strong change management and a commitment to inclusivity. Our change management approach focuses on placing human interactions at the core of AI development. This human-centered approach will help us bridge the gap, build trust, and maximize AI, maximize AI's potential. For us, this responsibility is an extension of our core ethics and our purpose. At the heart of our company is a unifying spirit, the spirit of Wipro, that brings together our employees, clients, shareholders, partners, and communities in which we live and serve.
We adhere to a cultural framework defined by five fundamental key principles, which are: leading with purpose, prioritizing the well-being of our associates, sustaining our communities, fostering inclusivity, and nurturing a mindset that propels us towards our ambitious goals. As all of you know, sustainability is key for us at Wipro. It's woven into our very fabric, into our very being. I am proud to share that we are on track to achieve our Net Zero goals by 2040. At this point in time, 76% of our energy footprint is renewable. We have cut our Scopes 1 and 2 emissions by 80% as of March 31, 2024. In addition, we are helping our clients reach their sustainability goals as well. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a core value across our company and within our communities.
I'm happy to share that we've increased the number of women in senior leadership at Wipro by 240%, reaching 18.7% in 3 years. Our efforts to support our employees with disabilities and our LGBTQ+ staff have led to a significant increase in our employee resource group membership. Our community initiatives are now in 17 countries. They support 225 programs in areas like education, primary healthcare, digital skilling, and urban ecology. These initiatives have helped 4.5 million people, including a significant proportion of vulnerable populations. The Wipro Foundation has empowered nearly 420,000, 420,000 women in underserved communities, offering them gender and maternal care programs.
These achievements, all of our achievements, would not have been possible without our dedicated associates, and I want to thank them personally for their passion and for their commitment. Also, I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to you, our unwavering shareholders. Your support and confidence in our vision have been instrumental, especially, especially during these challenging times. I am confident about our future, and I am convinced that our best is yet to unfold. We will continue to innovate, inspire, and create value for all stakeholders, charting a course towards a more prosperous tomorrow. I would now like to invite our CEO and Managing Director, Srini, to share his perspective on the year gone by. Srini, over to you. Thank you.
Thank you, Rishad. Good morning, everyone. It's an honor to be here today as the CEO and Managing Director of this iconic company where I began my career 32 years ago. Thank you for your trust and confidence. Rishad has given you a good overview of our business and the year gone by. As you said, financial year 2024 was a difficult year for the industry, which impacted our performance as well. Despite these market challenges, we pressed on with our transformation and focused on preparing our company and workforce for an AI-driven future. I believe these investments will allow us to move past the challenges of the past year and capitalize on the technology transformation taking place in our industry. I am confident that we will be able to achieve profitable growth.
Towards the end of my remarks, I will share our plan for putting Wipro back on the growth path. But first, let me provide you a brief overview of our financial performance. In financial year 2024, we reported gross revenue of $10.8 billion and operating margin of 16.1%. Additionally, I'm happy to share that we secured large deal bookings totaling $4.6 billion in total contract value. This actually represents a 17.4% growth from the previous year. In financial year 2024, we increased the revenue share from both our top five and top ten clients. Additionally, we also expanded our base of $100 million-plus accounts by adding three more clients to this bucket. As we enter financial year 2025, we will continue to streamline our operating model for greater efficiency.
We are investing in new capabilities, solutions, and partnerships to propel us into an AI-first era and delivering lasting value for our clients. You know, we are on the brink of a big technological change, and clients across the industries are excited to use AI to transform their own businesses. At Wipro, we have been strategically preparing for this very moment. Last year, we launched Wipro AI 360, a comprehensive AI-first ecosystem backed by a significant investment. I am pleased to report that our strategy is unlocking business value for our clients and for us. During his address, Rishad touched upon training and upskilling our workforce in AI and GenAI. In addition, I am delighted to share that we also hold 470 AI patents, and our Lab45 AI platform is fully operational and ready to use.
We also put in place strong guardrails to ensure compliance and safety throughout our AI journey, benefiting both our clients and our company. We are also working very closely with partners to develop both industry-specific and cross-industry solutions, empowering our clients to accelerate GenAI adoption. The benefits and return on investments from GenAI are becoming more apparent, from better stakeholder experiences to revenue insights and overall cost optimization. Additionally, we are putting more emphasis on a domain-led consultative approach to engage with clients, helping them to transition to an AI-first future. Now, looking ahead to financial year 2025, our top priority is to execute with speed on the five key strategic areas that we outlined at the end of financial year 2024. Let me cover those five priorities now. Number one, accelerating large deal momentum by working closely with both clients and partners and proactively shaping large deals.
2, strengthening relationships with large clients and partners and investing early on the next set of accounts that have the potential to grow into large accounts. Number three, focusing on AI-powered industry-specific offerings and consulting-led business solutions. four, building talent at scale around industry solutions with an AI-first approach and ensuring that every associate is trained on specific industry and also client context. Finally, driving client centricity and delivery excellence with execution rigor and speed. These five strategic priorities are designed to help us leverage technology shifts and drive ongoing profitable growth. Now, working together with our 230+ employees, clients, and partners, we will seize this opportunity to unlock the next stage of our growth. Our guiding light will be our clear vision, our defined priorities, commitment to our values, and a relentless pursuit of excellence.
I am excited about the journey ahead and look forward to writing the next chapter in Wipro's success story with all of you. Thank you for your continued trust and support. Let me now turn it back to Rishad. Over to you, Rishad.
Thank you. Thank you, Srini. The notice of the 70th Annual General Meeting and the annual report containing the audited financial statements, including consolidated financial statements for the year ended March 31, 2024, and the board's and auditors' reports have been sent by electronic mode to those members whose email addresses are registered with the company or depositories. These documents have also been made available on the company's website. Considering the above, the notice is being taken as read. Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP, statutory auditors have submitted their report for the financial statements for the year ended March 31, 2024. The auditor's report does not contain any qualifications or modified opinions or adverse remarks. There being no qualifications, the entire report is not required to be read in this meeting, and the auditor's report is being taken as read.
In terms of the notice of the 70th Annual General Meeting, the following items of business are to be considered at this meeting. On, to receive, consider, and adopt the audited financial statements of the company, including the consolidated financial statements for the financial year ended March 31, 2024, together with the reports of the directors and auditors thereon. Two, to confirm the interim dividend of INR 1 per equity share declared by the board on January 12, 2024, as the final dividend for the financial year 2023-2024. Three, to consider appointment of a director in place of Mr. Azim Premji, DIN number 00234280, who retires by rotation and being eligible, offers himself for reappointment.
Four, reappointment of Rishad Premji, DIN number 02983899, as a full-time director of the company. Five, reappointment of Mr. Azim Premji, DIN number 00234280, as a non-executive and non-independent director of the company. Six, approval of the Wipro Limited employee stock options, performance stock unit, and/or restricted stock unit scheme 2024 for grant of employee stock options, performance stock units, and/or restricted stock units to eligible employees under this 2024 scheme. Seven, approval of Wipro Limited employee stock options, performance stock unit, and/or restricted stock unit scheme 2024 for grant of employee stock options, performance stock units, and/or restricted stock units to the eligible employees of group companies of the company. We will now be happy to answer questions members may have about the financial statements or about other matters.
The InstaPoll e-voting facility will now be activated for members who are participating in this meeting and have not had a chance to vote through remote e-voting. The InstaPoll facility will remain active till 30 minutes after this meeting. We will now commence the Q&A session in a few minutes. Thank you. ...Back. I now request Sanaullah Khan, our Company Secretary to share a few guidelines for the Q and A session. Sana.
Thank you. Thank you, Rishad. In order to ensure a very smooth interaction and participation, I request the members to note the following guidelines for the question and answer session. The question and answer session will be anchored by me and I will call the preregistered speaker shareholders to ask the queries and clarifications one after the other. I will invite the speakers in the batches of five and we will answer these five questions before we move, move on to the next batch of five speakers. Members are requested to unmute the microphone before speaking and also enable webcam if they wish to appear on the video. Members are requested to mention the name, folio number and location and are also requested to restrict the question to two minutes, so that all speakers shareholder, shareholders will get an opportunity to share the views. In the interest of time, I request the members to not repeat the question raised by the previous speakers. It may be noted that the company reserves the right to limit the number of members asking question depending on the availability of time at this meeting. I now request the first set of five shareholders to come one after the other, starting with Santosh Kumar Saraf. Mr. Saraf, thank you for joining this meeting, sir.
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Yeah, you are audible-
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You are audible, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
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Thank you, thank you.
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Thank you, thank you Mr. Kumar. I now request the next shareholder, Mr. Kaushik Sahukar to come on to the screen and ask his question. Mr. Kaushik Sahukar. Yes, Mr. Kaushik-
Yes.
Thank you for joining this meeting. Go ahead.
Respected sir and distinguished guests, good morning to all. I hope I'm audible, sir.
Yes, yes, you are audible. Please go ahead.
Thank you. It is an honor to stand before this esteemed gathering today. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the board for granting me an opportunity to be part of this important event. I hope all of fans are fine and fit, especially Mr. Azim Premji. He is looking very serious today, sir. I hope he is fine, sir. Yeah. Today, I raise some key questions that are essential in understanding our company's position in the ever-evolving competitive landscape. How does Wipro Limited maintain its competitive edge in such a dynamic environment? What innovative products has Wipro introduced or planned to introduce in this increasingly competitive world? I believe that more a company invest in R&D, the stronger it dominance become, positioning it as a leader, leader in industry.
Can we continue to trust the resilience of Wipro Limited business model, and how can the company ensure that shareholders value remain intact? Additionally, Wipro's main business focus is generating revenue through artificial intelligence, AI now. Can Wipro, through its use of AI, manufacture any equipment to support specially abled person, to improve their mobility and, and make their lives more meaningful? While this business may, may not be highly, lucrative, reducing people's pain and hardship will garner a lot of blessings. The company should consider taking such initiative. Before I conclude, I want to express my sincere gratitude to entire secretarial team, including Honey Gajjar, for connecting with me and granting me the opportunity to be part of such a memorable event.
Additionally, I request the support of the company in associating with me in the area of certification audit, including Form 15 CB. I believe CSR means helping the needy at a crucial time when they approach the company for help. I am confident that Wipro carries the vision and commitment to support those in need. I am confident that Wipro carries those in need. I have been requesting support from our company for last 5 years, but it seems my request has not been considered as management may might be busy with other important event. However, I am sure that this time it will be considered. Sir, I would like to state that I was associated with Wipro in the past for 3, 4... For last 3, 4 years.
My association has been stopped and payment, and payment has also been stopped without intimating with the reason. Can you kindly intervene in this matter and, if possible, restart our association with the company and help me to lead my life with dignity? Finally, I propose utilizing the substantial savings from the virtual mode of this meeting for the benefit of speaker shareholders. This could involve arranging site visits for shareholders or distributing token of appreciation, such as sweets or small gift to our esteemed speaker shareholders. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Mr. Kaushik. Thanks for joining. I now request Mansi Amish Masurekar to join this meeting and ask her questions. Miss Mansi, please. Yes, yes, ma'am, please go ahead. We can see you.
Yeah, go ahead, Mansi. No, you're not... I think you're on mute.
We are not able to hear you.
...Okay.
Yeah, we can hear you now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good morning, Chairman, sir, and members of the board. I'm Mansi Amish Masurekar, a member of an esteemed organization called Millennium Mams, and a proud shareholder of your organization. Sir, my question to you is: Gen AI will be a key priority for IT service providers. And which industry do you think that you know will be seeing the early adopters of this technology? And what are the potential risks and challenges associated with integrating AI into company's operations? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Mansi. I now request Yusuf Yunus Rangwala to join this meeting and ask his question, please.
What is that? Yusuf.
Good morning, Chairman, sir.
Can you hear my voice?
Yes, Mr.
Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead.
Good morning, respected Chairman, especially Azim Premji, sir. Sir, sir. Sir, he's a very hardworking and very particular few work. 84th Annual General Meeting. Sir, my delivery point, INR 1 dividend, as you've given, that is very good. And our Sanaullah Khan, he's a hardworking company secretary. Sir, balance sheet around 492 pages. AC balance sheet, sir, company world ranking, IT world ranking. Sir, I want to know. Our total number of staff, 225,000 employees. Women employees, how many there are, sir? I would like to know. How many there are women employee? And, sir, on page number 17, on page number 17, as you may see, CSR activity, Wipro Foundation, which help our people 62,062 are benefited in this scheme, sir. This shows how our foundation are caring for the poor.
As chairman, [Foreign language] company, sir, working, share around 600. Sir, when was the last bonus given, sir? Many years, 5 years declared a bonus, sir. [Foreign language] Can I expect in the coming year a bonus, sir, from you? 1 to 3, sir, because you are having a very excellent reserve and nothing more to add. Sir, foreign country ... client there. As you mentioned, 1 lakh 30, 1 lakh 1 thousand 374, a total number of client, as you mentioned in the balance sheet, and nothing more to add. Sir, ... electric division, ... tube light... soap, Santoor, your brand. Sir, private company, company, group company. Sir, ... when you made Santoor, so address company, sir.
I would like to know what is this, sir, because they have given the address of your company, but that is a limited private company. But this question I have introduced to you, what, because this is a sister company? Sir, I want to know. Or Chairman, sir, join Diwali sweet, sir. Sweet, sir. Sir, visit Bangalore, Chairman, sir. Azim, sir. Azim Premji, Bombay opportunity Bombay opportunity sir. And health, sir, Allah. You should not have any sorrow, or your, your, your son, who is with you, sir, I feel very happy to see him. He's a very hardworking director, and we will be with him, and I support all the resolution.
Thank you.
Nothing more to...
Thank you, Mr. Yusuf.
So, Rishad, we are done with[crosstalk]
... Sir, sir, ... want to finish.
Okay.
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[Foreign language] And I wish our company for all the festivals, sir.[Foreign language]
Thank you, Ji. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yusuf.
So, thank you all for your questions. I apologize. I'll try and answer them in English. It'll be easier for me. And I'll answer them in no particular order and try and cover everybody. There was a question from you, Santosh Ji, and from you, Mr. Yusuf, on our consumer care business. As you will know, that this business was demerged from Wipro Limited back in 2013, and then that's now a private limited company, so it's completely separate from this company.
I know in the past, when we used to do meetings in person, you would have the opportunity to also avail of the benefits of some of that, and we'll try and see whether we can evaluate ways in which you can still evaluate the benefits despite the fact that we don't get together in person. There was a comment on government projects. Look, we do look at government projects. We've worked with government very closely over the many years that we've been in existence in India, and we will continue to look at those projects selectively, both at the central level as well as at the state level. There was a question on insurance cover, which I didn't follow. If one of you can take that, but we can maybe do that at the end, if that's okay.
There was a question on fundamental competitive differentiation and on GenAI, and I'll tie that together. You know, as Srini mentioned, and as I mentioned, we are going to be very purposeful and very focused on driving consulting and AI-led differentiation in our offerings to customers, and then infusing AI in everything that we do in the company. We're looking at AI very fundamentally from three different lenses. One is how do we disrupt ourselves as an organization? Both Srini and I talked about that. So how do we leverage AI within the organization? Two is how do we disrupt the work that we currently do in delivering work for our customers, and how do we transform that, leveraging AI?
And three, is how do we take differentiated, context-specific, company-specific, industry-specific solutions to customers in the area of AI? We've invested tremendously in 2023. We've strengthened our investments in 2024, and we will only enhance these investments as we move forward in 2025. There were some questions on CSR and our efforts. I talked about this in my opening comments. We spend over INR 200 crore a year on CSR, on varying different areas from education to healthcare, to digital skilling, to urban ecology. We have covered 225 projects across 17 countries over the last year, year and a half.
We've expanded beyond only doing projects in India as well, and that's a core part of our mission and our focus as a company, and that will only go and increase further and, and, and intensify. There was also a question or a comment on just risks associated with AI. One of the things we talk a lot about, and you will read a fair amount in our annual report as well, is our whole framework around responsible AI and everything from a social, environmental, ethical lens, how do we bake that into everything that we do in the company? Every solution that we build goes through our council that evaluates it for safety, for security, for privacy, and every opportunity we look at. Women employees. There was a question on women employees.
About 36.6% of all employees in the company are women today. As I talked about in my opening comments as well, of our leaders, which is of roughly our top 800-1,000 leaders in the company, 18.7% are women, and this is an increase of 240% of where it was three years ago. Your comments on bonus are noted, and we will take that into consideration as well. Is there anything else that you wanna touch on? Good. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Rishad. We will now go on to the next set of five shareholders, starting with Mr. Chetan. Mr. Chetan, please, start your mic and switch on your camera and ask your question. Mr. Chetan, are you there? Okay, we'll move on to the next shareholder, Mr. Jaydip.
Hello. I think Chetan is there.
Sorry. Yeah, Mr. Chetan, if you are there, please go ahead and ask your question.
Now why don't we come back to Chetan?
Yeah. Mr. Chetan, we will come back to you. In the meantime, we'll move on to the next shareholder, Mr. Jaydip. Can you please ask your question, Mr. Jaydip?
Welcome.
Mr. Jaydip, we can't hear you very well. If you can just speak up, please.
Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Am I audible now?
Yes, you are.
Yes.
Yeah. Good morning, founder, chairman, chairman, MD, Board of directors, and other participants in today's meeting. Myself, Jaydip Bakshi, connecting from the city of Kolkata. Thanks to our company secretary, Mr. Sanaullah Khan, for giving me an opportunity and presenting a detailed annual report, and to the entire secretarial team for good investment service and maintaining through this, and conducting this video conference in a smooth manner. Thanks once again for the INR 1 dividend you have passed on to us. Sir, our technology and IT consulting service enable enterprises to build innovative solutions and address complex digital transformations. Any hindrance we faced or foresee in our application service, kindly highlight. The impact of challenges resulted in lower revenue earnings. Plans to overcome the same. Companies are embracing innovative technology to take their organization to forefront.
How is Wipro helping out through AI or GenAI, cloud solution, et cetera, for enhancing operation efficiency and unlock innovations? So future growth and plans through joint venture and expanding with existing partner, kindly share some light. Program for upskilling employing, employee talent and target for future R&D expenses. Congrats once again for having 36% women employees among our total workforce. And congrats for target for increase in usage of renewable energy and CSR spending and recognitions received for hard work by the dedicated employees. What is our thoughts regarding risk management? Kindly share some thoughts. I've supported my all the resolutions and hope our continue our growth and growth prospects and recharge our industry with enhanced operation efficiency and fuel the next wave of innovation. Thank you, sir.
Continue with this video conference, so when we can touch, keep in touch with you in future. Thank you. Namaskar.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jaydip. The next shareholder is Mr. Atanu. I request Mr. Atanu to-
Mr. what?
Atanu.
Mr. Atanu. Yeah.
Yes. Am I audible, sir?
Yes.
Yes.
Please go ahead.
Namaskar. Good morning. I, Atanu Saha, a shareholder of Wipro Limited. My respected founder, Sir Azim Premji. Namaskar. Sir, our chairman, Sir Rishad Premji, and our Deepak Ji, and Aparna Madam, Tulsi Naidu Ji, N. S. Kannan Ji, and Päivi Rekonen, and Patrick Dupuis, and Dr. Patrick Ennis, and our CEO, Pallia Ji, and CS Sanaullah Khan Ji, and all my shareholders and our auditors, our scrutinizers, and all shareholders, and all viewers for today and also tomorrow. It's thanks to they give me chance to speak today. It's our operation, it's organizing its seventy-eighth Annual General Meeting. Sir, first of all, I thanks to that it gave me chance, give our chance to use Microsoft, because we are habituated to use Zoom and also WebEx. So it's a really good chance to use Microsoft. Thanks.
And another one, this is annual report, which is already I got it. It's a complete total what you have done throughout the year. Completely, it is really beautifully organized way. But one thing I'm just informing you, sir, this is BSE, NSE, the volume. I could not get that page number. The volume, the NASDAQ volume is not there. NASDAQ volume is... But it is available on NASDAQ. Sir, whether it is on eleventh July, it is already over. The casting vote is already over on eleventh July. Sir, do you have any plan to at least it's my request, do you have any plan for the matter of ADR and give a separate color or separate angular for deposited depositary receipts?
Sir, the matter of the capital reserve, sir, it is written there that not clearly available. Sir, do you explain it? And another one, that is 2015 until coming on 2025. So this is the 10 years highlights is necessary. Because on 2015, our Premji hand over to our current chairman. So at least it's really grateful for us to know about the 10 years whole, how he his good time created for us. I, Atanu Saha, wish a good year ahead with good result and good dividend and also bonus issues. Thank you, sir. I already casted my vote. Thank you. Namaskar. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. I now request Mr. Ashit Kumar Pathak to ask his question, please. Yes, sir.
Am I audible?
Yes.
Am I audible?
Yes, you are audible.
Good morning, respected Chairman, our new CEO and MD, Board of directors, company secretary, fellow members joining at 78 AGM of Wipro Limited. My name is Ashit Kumar Pathak, joining from Dum Dum, Kolkata. At first, my extreme gratitude to our company secretary, Mr. Sanaullah Khan, and leadership team, mostly Miss Honey Gajjar and Akshita Talanki, for nicely cooperated me for joining the demo and site verification, and allow me to speak. Sir, your opening remarks is very most valuable for my company's prospective, business perspectives, also our new MD and CEO. Now, coming to my points. Sir, your opening remarks, you mentioned AI 360 and significant existence of general AI. If possible, throw some highlights about mostly expected top line and bottom line for this initiative, in current financial year.
In balance sheet, I noticed Wipro enters into agreement with Desjardins. Share your thoughts for future prospective for this arrangement. Sir, any new acquisition plan in global market after Capco in current financial year? If possible, throw some highlights. And present our market share in domestic market with our product portfolios. All our staffs working in hybrid mode or WFH mode, and present attrition rate. And sir, my previous speaker also mentioned about bonus share and any buyback plan in current financial year. I noticed media report, IT companies facing some challenges in overseas operation, mostly geopolitical turbulence, legal compliance and regulatory norms, currency exchange and inflation rates, and managing global teams and foreign policy. If possible, throw some highlights about this, how we can mitigate these challenges? Next, in domestic operation, talent acquisition and retention is the very most challenging factor.
So if possible, throw your highlights. Cost pressure, cybersecurity and risk services, security incident, customer engagement, data management, tax planning, and high attrition among management team, internal and external issue, and global demand uncertainty, and dearth of large deal announcement and ineffective turnaround efforts. Please share your thoughts, how our company's management team mitigating these challenges? Nothing to say more. I am appreciating to my company's management team, nicely achieved revenue, $10.8 billion, though growth is down 4.4%, 4.4%, due to challenging years you mentioned. I think this challenge will be recovered as soon as possible with the respected our PM and also new emerging Indian economy. And I pray to God for all of your good health and prosperity, and also our respected chairman also. Thanking you, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next shareholder is Mr. Amarendra Nath Ray. Mr. Amarendra Nath, please ask your question.
Am I audible, sir?
Yes.
Am I audible and visible, sir?
Yes, you are.
Yes.
You're audible and visible. Thank you.
All right. I said, good morning, respected founder, Chairman, Mr. Azim H. Premji, present Chairman, Rishad A. Premji, other Board of members present, myself, Amarendra Nath Ray, an equity shareholder of Wipro Limited, joining video conferencing from Kolkata. It is 78th Annual General Meeting organized by the company through video conferencing. Special thanks to our well-experienced company secretary, Mr. Sanaullah Khan, for giving me an opportunity to express my views, and his secretarial department for rendering good investor service, sending annual report, joining link with speaker serial number well in advance, and conducting video conferencing in smooth manner. Sir, I want to congratulate our company secretary and his secretarial department for bringing out 490-page annual report, which is colorful, exhaustive, self-explanatory, transparent with facts and figures are all in place, and adhere to the all norms of corporate governance.
Sir, company's revenue from operation in FY 2023-24 has decreased compared to the previous year. Profit after tax also decreased compared to the previous year. Sir, I would like to know what steps taken by our company to increase profitability, and how is our company overcoming the competition from other competitor planning to create shareholders value? Sir, which are the verticals in the business which have been least affected and also significantly affected by the current macroeconomic conditions? Sir, what is the attrition rate, I would like to know, and what are you doing to stop or keep attrition rate minimized? Congratulations on various awards, accolades received by our company and CSR, CSR activities done by our company. Sir, I have full trust on our strong, efficient management. I wish our company's prosperity.
I hope our company will grow to new heights in the near future. Thank you for your patient hearing. Over to you for further proceedings. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Rishad, we are done with the five.
Chetan wants to come back?
No, we will go to the next... He's in the next set.
So again, thank you, Mr. J.D., Mr. Thanu, Mr. Ashit Kumar, and Mr. Amrendra, for your questions. I'll try and answer them as again, I can in bulk. One, thank you for some of you for making your compliments on the annual report, and we appreciate that. We appreciate that we continue to try and build and improve the annual report every year. Thank you also for many of your comments and observations, which are noted. Heard again, the comment on bonus, that is also noted. There were a couple of questions on just sort of the challenges of last year, lower profit of last year. As we mentioned, it obviously was a tough year. It was a tough year for the industry more broadly. It was a particularly tough year for us.
You know, one of the things we did notice is that discretionary spend came down substantively last year, and consulting spend came down substantively last year. That's the largest part of our overall portfolio. The good news, as I also mentioned, is we're starting to see in the second half of last year, spend coming back in the consulting area, and that usually tends to bode well downstream, a few quarters later for the technology spend. And so we are hopeful that as we move into the second half of financial year 2025, we should see spends picking up as well.
We are very purposeful and focused about driving large deals, which Srini mentioned, focusing on building a new set of large accounts, taking a very solution-specific, consulting-led, AI-infused, AI-powered approach to all our customers, and we are confident that that should bode well as we move forward as well. Profitability has expanded by 50 basis points. Last year, we were at 16.1% compared to 15.6% the year before, and we ended the year at 16.4% in quarter four of financial year 2024. So the trajectory for profitability improvement and operating margin improvement is moving in the right direction. Attrition rates are down substantively last year compared to the year before. I think we're roughly at 14.5% for last year.
So attrition rates are very much in a range we feel is manageable and we're comfortable. We continue to deeply invest in people, both from a retention plan, by providing both financial ways to retain people, as well as opportunities and growth, growth paths for people to retain them, as well as the opportunity to skill and upskill and particularly in new technologies, which are going to be incredibly important. So we both talked about the fact that we've trained over 225,000 of our colleagues on GenAI 101, starting with me. We have about 30,000 colleagues trained on GenAI 201 levels and above. So we are really skilling on a very real-time, active basis, all our employees to be future ready, to be ready for the opportunities that will unfold as we move forward as well.
We continue to look at, there were some questions on partners and on M&A. We continue to look strategically at making investments where relevant and how relevant, and that's been an active part of our strategy historically, and nothing changes. That continues. And so we will continue to look at opportunities to build newer partnerships, to deepen the partnerships that we have. I alluded to four or five of them in my opening comments, and we will continue to look at M&A as well. So thank you.
Thank you, Rishad. We now move on to the third set of shareholders, Mr. Hiranand. I request Mr. Hiranand to ask his question, please.
Hi, well-
Yeah, you're slightly soft, Mr. Hiranand. If you could just increase the volume on your side, that would be great, please.
It's okay?
Yes, it's better. Thank you.
Thank you. Namaste to all from Hiranand Kotwani. I am speaking from Kalyan near Mumbai. It's a great pleasure to talk today Wipro. Certainly, this gentleman, Rishad and, Srinivas, has good state of picture. Actually, I am of opinion that the dividend of INR 1 is not up to the standard of Wipro and the goodwill of Wipro. An INR 1 dividend has been given, it's very less. And the future of this gentleman is, Srinivas, inherited the confidence enhanced that the future we will get good dividend and good set of result. Excellent result will come in the near future. Coming to the point, gentlemen. The chairman, what is stock option? What's the policy? How will you give the stock option to the employee at the various prices? How policy regarding that, what price you give them?
At how many years if the employee work, then only you give. And what is the lapse, if it elapse some time period for the stock option? Will you narrate the stock option policy of our organization? There are so many women's harassment case, sexual harassment case reported at various demographics. How you dealt with them? How many go to the court of law or you hand over to the police? How you dealt with them? Because every, in all software, even TCS, there's more than 100 case this time, and you are all... TCS gentleman reported me. Now, how you dealt with that? To increase the work safety and work culture, all these best thing will yet to come. Certainly, the growth will come, and dividend, we expect the future will be good. How you are going to enhance that trust value?
How many verticals you are going to unfold when you made any? Nothing more than just wishing all the best to the management. Thank you, and good luck.
Thank you, Mr. Hiranand.
Thank you. I now re-request Mr. Reddeppa Gundluru. Mr. Reddeppa Gundluru, please.
Thank you, moderator, for giving this opportunity to speak in front of the professional Board. Mr. Chairman, Rishad, sir, Azim Premji Ji, and my CEO, Srinivas Ji, and my company's secretary, Sana Ji, and all other non-executive directors, good analysts, auditors, and my fellow shareholders for this video conference, Wipro. Good morning. Namaste, sir. Sir, my name is Reddeppa Gundluru from Hyderabad. As a shareholder of Wipro, I'm very happy and proud I'm able to share with you. Sir, I have very good memories in Wipro. I have very good progress with our greatest leader, Chairman Azim Premji Sir, and also Rishad Sir. Sir, as I request, as I request for the physical report of the annual report, I received well in advance. It was a very good information, helpful photos. Everything is there, sir.
Special thanks to the annual report preparing department and the secretary for a wonderful dedicated annual report. And also, I found there is a wonderful governance, like ethical, world-class governance. Thank you. Appreciation to concerned team. And also, sir, Chairman, sir, in your speech, I came to know a lot of great up in this. So I don't have any queries and notes for further. My object... technical issue, sir. Sir, I would like to thank you my for this. CSR, wonderful CSR, sir, greatest company for the needy. Special thanks to sir. Yes, sir, financially, we have strong balance sheets, strong numbers. Also, thank you for wonderful dividend, continued dividend. Sir, here my question is: what is the impact on these geopolitical issues occurring Russia and Israel and also how many issues in globally?
So what is the challenges we are facing, and also any impact our company, our future growth? Sir, I'm also very much interested in bonus. Already, my other shareholders requested. Sir, please consider an appropriate time. And also, final question is, sir, what is your future vision, strategy, or any, any targets and also any acquisitions? And, I would like to know any major projects, any major deals in pipeline, I would like to know from you, the team. So these are my views, sir. Sir, there is no specific question balance sheet. I support all the resolutions, welcoming, and also the Azim Premji, once again, the board as an independent director. I'm very happy and proud as a, I have voted, done. Thank you, Sana Ji, for the wonderful cooperation and your team.
Thank you.
and also-
Thank you, Mr. Reddeppa.
-your staff.
... I wish good health to all the Board of directors, and God bless you all. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Reddeppa. I now request Mr. Abhishek, Abhishek J, to ask his question, please.
Can you hear me, sir? Am I audible?
Yes, please. Go ahead.
My name is Abhishek, shareholder of the company. My DP ID, IN30637. Client ID is 41359155. So first of all, I congratulate the management on the Annual General Body Meeting. So I trust all is well with you and your family in this challenging situation. Our company deserves much more respect than the current market cap. After completing more than a decade of successful operations, profitability, dividend history, and becoming one of the strongest brand in the respective segment. So I would like to know, as of date, how many employees are there in the company? And, there's a request from other shareholders, also, sir, kindly try to give a job opportunity to the shareholders, their children who are eligible for the job which is being...
If there is an opening and, they have applied, and they match the criteria, when there are some recommendation from some part of the shareholder, just try to consider the request of the shareholders, sir. What are the steps being taken by the management to reduce the other expenses, legal professional charges, and the audit fee? So then myself and my team are running a legal firm in the name and style of Saravana Associates. I would request the management to kindly enroll the firm in the empowerment of the company, and we'll be glad to extend our services, sir. I made a request last year also, sir, if you can put me to your concerned team, I may share my credentials with them. Nothing much to ask, sir. The company is doing really very well.
I do appreciate the corporate governance part of the company. The corporate governance is really excellent, and the company secretary and the entire secretarial team are always accessible. For the meeting also, they have called us several times to join, and their company, the secretarial team ensure that all the participants join and seek their clarifications in this Annual General Body Meeting and make this Annual General Body Meeting a grand success. Then nothing much to ask, sir. I wish the company and the Board of directors a great success and prosperity in the coming future. Sir, one more small request, sir. Kindly try to consider hybrid AGM in the years to come, sir.
Most of the companies, they have started conducting hybrid AGM because some senior citizens are facing a lot of issues and discrepancies in joining this, AGM in this virtual platform because of the digital challenges in the virtual platform. So if you can consider hybrid AGM in the years to come, more number of shareholders can join you in the meeting. You can get their valuable points, suggestions, and ideas.
Thank you. Thank you.
That will be helpful for the management to move forward in future. Nothing much to ask, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, sir.
Thank you.
Hope to see you in the meeting of the next calendar year.
Thank you, Mr. Abhishek. I now request Bharatraj to ask his question, please. Mr. Bharatraj? Mr. Bharatraj?
So, now why don't we answer this, and if he's back, and if Chetan is back, those are the last two left, then?
We have only two more.
Okay, then go ahead.
Mr. Bharatraj, are you able to hear me?
Hello?
Yes, we can.
Audible, sir?
Yes, you are audible, Bharat.
Yes. Yeah, very good morning, Chairman, entire Board of Directors. I'm Bharatraj, I'm Bharatraj attending from Hyderabad. First of all, sir, wonderful performance in this financial year, and thanks for the dividend and the wonderful CSR program, sir. I thank the management for winning the case about... regarding our ex-CFO who have breached the ethics of our company, sir. So, Chairman, sir, one question I want to bring to know, what is your future plans regarding these employees who are senior employees, breaching the company ethics and who are going doing fraud, sir? So what initiatives you are taking if somebody like senior management, once again, they do the same thing, so how we are strong, sir?
Please let me know, sir, because we have given a lot of opportunities for the senior employees, but suddenly they're shifting the company and doing, image bad and damages. So, Chairman, take, serious actions on this, regarding this issue, sir. Because Wipro is not a small company. If anything issues goes, our share price will come down. A lot of impact will be there in the share price, sir. Chairman, sir, please conduct the hybrid AGM, sir, because, physical AGM is very important so that we'll have a interaction with our chairman, sir. Hybrid means physical and, video conference, sir. Once again, sir, I thank our company secretary. Khan is always accessible and send the entire annual report, sir. Every shareholder is requesting for the bonus, sir. Liberal bonus, sir. One share to two shares, sir.
I hope this, this year you will, look into this issue, sir. This is nothing, sir, love and affection of our chairman, sir. Once again, sir, all the best for coming years. May God bless you, and I congratulate and best wishes to our new CFO. I hope under your leadership, my company financials will grow, and you'll, you will support our chairman also in this regarding higher dividends and bonus also. Once again, sir, take care, sir. God bless you all. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bharat. Mr. Faisal Hawa. Mr. Faisal Hawa, please ask your question.
You're on mute, Mr. Faisal.
We can't hear you, sir.
So, sir-
Yeah.
-just, some questions from my end. One is, that, you know, what are the, you know, contexts and the, you know, kind of discussions that take place in our board meetings? You know, the, I would like to be like, you know, like a fly on the wall and try to understand that, you know, what are the kind of, you know, to-and-fro discussions? What are the kind of, you know, key questions that independent directors address to us, and, you know, particularly on strategy. And, if at all possible, easily, then, you know, I would like this question to be answered by an independent director...
So that, you know, I, I have an understanding of, you know, how strategies are discussed threadbare at our end, and particularly, you know, where involvement of new personnel or new capital is involved. That's one. Second is, sir, you know, can you just explain, you know, whether this Gen AI will, you know, result in lesser hiring over the years and, you know, will lead to much more productivity and, you know, a lot, a lot more into, you know, data management and, you know, data mining, and probably less of, you know, software coding, et cetera. So if you could just, you know, elaborate on that too.
Third is, sir, you know, I have noticed that, you know, over the years, a lot of people who have left us at senior positions have gone on to make their, you know, very big corporations. And, you know, that itself shows the strength of our own company. But that also gets me to the next thought that, you know, is it that, you know, Wipro, at this point of time, has become much more bureaucratic and, you know, that's where the entrepreneurial spirit has gone missing?
So, is the company taking any kind of steps to, you know, make a structure where, you know, the more people are more entrepreneurial in nature and, you know, have time to be devoted, like, you know, like how Google has, like, 20% of time to be devoted for new ventures? Or does the Indian culture or context even allow for such a thing to happen? So I would prefer a very detailed answer on this. And, you know, and also three steps that, you know, you have taken to improve, Wipro already has a super culture, but, you know, three steps that you have taken to further, you know, improve the entrepreneurial structure of our company. Then again, sir, will ESG dashboards be also a very big business for us?
Online dashboards, you know, where companies track their, you know, their carbon footprint, et cetera, on a real-time basis. Will that also emerge as a big big business going forward? And, do we, sir, also lobby with, you know, U.S. governments, and, you know, what are the kind of spendings we do on those lobbying to, you know, gain more government business or more, more, more, business from, you know, the various states of the USA? And, I mean, what, if at all, you know, there is a priority that you have for any one country going forward, which country would that be? And, and if, if, if at all, you can give some reasons and what the difficulty in engaging with that country's business would be.
Then again, sir, is it possible that, you know, you give us a, you know, a thought? You know, every leader has, you know, has something which he wants his company or his team to do. So what is that one thing that you deeply believe in as a strategy, but you can never get the, you know, your team to believe in or to, you know, really collaborate or follow up with you on it? And, sir, for me, you know, Mr. Azim Premji has been a huge inspiration and, you know, in my own way, I try to always, you know, understand that, you know, what he would do in many life situations that I face. So may I just request, Mr.
Azim Premji to, you know, suggest us three books which have deeply affected his life and to also, you know, write a brief, you know, kind of a autobiography, you know, which would, you know, give his struggles and, you know, I mean, there are a lot of press articles written on him and, but, you know, those, those are always articles which are merged with the halo effect, you know, and they don't really, you know, capture each and every aspect of his personality. So that is one request I would like to make to him. And, secondly, if, Mr.
Rishad Premji, if you could also suggest three books that we could read so that we are more in-depth on what are the technology changes, not only in the IT industry, but, you know, in overall, you know, technology world that's happening, which could further, you know, change our lives or careers. Sir, sorry I had asked a lot of questions, and this is it. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
So much, Mr. Faisal.
Thank you, mister. One last shareholder we have, Rishad. Mr. Chetan, if you are there, kindly join and ask your question.
Can you hear me, sir?
Yes.
Yes, please.
Hello, can you hear me, sir?
Yes, yes, we can hear you, Mr. Chetan.
Thank you, sir. Thank you so much for giving me the chance to speak with you. First of all, I am really thankful to the secretarial department and entire team who gave me this chance. Secondly, and operationally, he call me. Sir, today is the rainy day in Delhi, so the network issue is so high. Sir, first of all, employees, 40,183 new staff admit this financial year. Sir, INR 20 crore new equity issue. Sir, as a right issue, participation shareholder available same to same employees available, jo ki aapke saath itna saal juda hua hai. Shareholder right issue... equity issue shareholder, stakeholder... stakeholder... stakeholder right issue nahi diya gaya hai.
The second thing is that, sir, [Foreign language]
... [Foreign language]
Customers [Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]। Thank you sir! Thank you so much for giving me the chance.
Thank you Chetan ji!
So you know, I will get a bunch of people to help me answer some of the questions, they have some very specific lots of questions. Let me just make some high level comments again. You know, we will take into consideration this request on hybrid meetings. One of the reasons to do this meetings in a remote virtual form to be more inclusive, to allow more people to participate. But we will take into consideration your request for hybrid meetings again, appreciate your appreciation for the work that we are doing on CSR again have heard the request and ask for bonus. A couple of the specific questions, that I will try and answer and hand over some of the other questions to some of my colleagues here. You know, there was a question on dividend right up front. One of the things we stated explicitly that we look at a dividend payout ratio and return to shareholder of 45%-50% of net income over a three year time frame and if I look at the three year time frame from financial 2021 to financial 2024, we have returned 54% and we will keep that very much in mind returning money to shareholders. And so that philosophy remains unchanged, because we want to make sure we have enough money as well available for other strategic things like we want to do, which is both organic as well as inorganic opportunities for growth. There was a question on stock option we don't give stock option, we give restricted stock units. We cover a large part of our senior leadership on three fundamental avenues, one on performance, two on value, three on the potential for performance. We cover this is a part of tenure and time based retention, which are restricted stock units as well as performance based units and it's a combination of this two and the philosophy we have been following for several years. We evaluate giving option to stock units to our leaders on an annual basis and this is approved by the Nomination and Remuneration Committee and also approved by board. The comment that was made on sexual harassment. We take this very very, very seriously. One is we want to make sure that we have an environment in the company, where people feel comfortable speaking up and expressing the concerns and we have a very formal process through our POSH Committee, which is prevention of sexual harassment committee, as well as Ombuds process to ensure that all cases are heard very closely and understood and subsequently dealt with in a manner most appropriate to what is discovered. We take this very very seriously. It is a core part of what we stand for as a company. You know, there was a question on geo political issues and it came up well which I missed answering. We have not seen a direct impact of the wars on our business directly. We obviously continue to monitor this very very closely. But if you ask me, this is a direct impact of the war in our business, I would submit no.
There was a question on job opportunities. We are a fair, fair employer. Everybody has an opportunity. Look at jobs. We evaluate everybody, whether you are a shareholder or a shareholder, son or relative on, on merits and so please, if you feel you want to have an opportunity in the company, please do apply. But we follow standard process for evaluation of jobs inside the company. There was a question on leadership leaving as well as on how do we create an environment for keeping leaders. Look, you know, we pride ourselves that we have been a very entrepreneurial company through our history. In fact, we have bred many-many CEOs, that have gone out to build organizations. The reality is sometimes people have opportunities that giving a bigger leap in the career and so people leave...for those opportunities.
We pride on the fact that we empower people young, we give them opportunities to grow when they're young, and we think we create enough of an opportunity to be highly decentralized and highly empowered in leaders running their businesses. So I think that entrepreneurial spirit, that has always been a part of the, of the secret sauce of Wipro, I think continues. We are very particular about ensuring that we, you know, ensure that contracts are, that we sign with our colleagues and our employees, we, we hold to, and that philosophy is not changed and will not change going forward as well. I'll hand it over to Mr. Deepak Satwalekar, who is our Lead Independent Director. There was a question on how and what the board engages on.
Maybe he can make a couple of comments on that, Deepak.
Thank you very much. I'll just briefly touch upon how the process is and what do we cover. This is done not just at the board level, but through the various committees that the board has. One of the more important areas that we focus on and cover is on the area of succession planning. And, we're happy to say that this year, the process has gone smoothly because we've had a change and a smooth transition at both the CFO and the CEO level. So you've seen both of them over here. So that is a big one. The other, of course, is focusing on the business, and which lines of business, which geographies in the world that we would focus on, is what we would look at.
All of this, of course, is keeping in mind the risks that are involved in all of these areas that we go into. So the risk factor is taken in detail in the Audit and Risk Committee, and then brought up to the board. There has been a lot of reference to the Wipro way of doing things, and therefore, the ESG occupies an important element, and I think that is looked at very seriously as to how we are meeting our targets on doing business the right way. So I think there is a significant degree of engagement at the board level and in the committees on the direction in which the company should be going. And if there is a change, that is well debated before we embark on that change. Okay. Thank you.
I'll also hand it over to Srini Pallia. There were some specific questions on strategy and disagreeing on strategy. So Srini, if you want to-
I think this was a specific question from Faisal. First, I'll answer the question from Faisal regarding GenAI impact on coding, data, and hiring. So clearly, if you look at in the context of coding, specifically the way we leverage GenAI, both in the software development life cycle and also in the managed services. In the software development life cycle, as we continue to, you know, implement more and more GenAI tools, the productivity, you know, obviously improves both in the terms of coding as well as testing. And this is a journey. As GenAI continues to improve, we will see more productivity, productivity benefits on that. The second aspect is on the data. Data is extremely critical for AI to be right.
So, you know, in addition to the responsible AI and secure AI that Rishad talked about, having the data, the foundational data, data strategy, the entire data management, governance, becomes very, very critical. So it's a very important point that you brought up. And coming to, the process areas, whether it's, you know, how you improve business process areas, in addition to the data, whether it's in the context of customer experience or employee experience, or a better supply chain visibility, you know, we will have a combination of both GenAI and data impacting us.
Now, the way I see it is that in the long term, mid to long term, GenAI will be actually a net positive opportunity for a company like Wipro, and we want to actually, we want to build on to that, capabilities and then thereby enhance our market share within the, within the business. As far as the strategy is concerned, we have actually called out, today I called out the five strategic priorities that we have, including the large deals, including building larger, stronger relationship with our large clients. Building talent at scale, there was a question around that, and we all...
So these are the areas that, as an organization, the entire Wipro Executive Board team, that's, that supports me, and also the Wipro Executive Committee team, they're all—we are all together, united, to drive this so that we bring the growth back, especially the profitable growth that we're looking for.
Thanks, Srini. I'll also hand it over to Aparna Iyer. Aparna is our CFO, and there were some specific questions on rights issue and SG&A and margin expansion.
Yeah.
-and directors, comp, and-
Yeah.
If you could just take those, please.
So, you know, I'm gonna take, so all the... Like Rishad clarified, we had issue stock options or, restricted stock units, only to the key leadership, the top, 100-200 employees. There is absolutely no plans for doing any rights issue. If you look at, our balance sheet, our reserves are very healthy, and there is no need for us to do a rights issue, so that's not under consideration at the moment. To your point on, the compensation and remuneration of the, chairperson, it has actually gone down year-on-year. There is, part of the compensation that's linked, as a commission to the incremental net profits that the company makes.
In FY 2024, since our net profits declined year-on-year, that commission did not amount to anything, and so therefore, you will actually see, that in FY 2024, the compensation is actually down. We continuously benchmark the compensation that we give out, and there is enough governance around it. To your point on our cost of revenues declining year-on-year, it was done, in line with the revenues. And in fact, a lot of the, cost of revenue reduction was, done consciously by improving our utilization and our operating metrics, such as FPP productivity and increasing the freshers, so that our operating margins could improve. And as you would note, our operating margins in FY 2024 improved by 50 basis points year-on-year, despite the revenues declining.
That was a reason for the cost of revenue decline.
Good.
Thank you.
Thank you. I know, Faisal, you had a request for books. We'll have to think about that. We don't want to sort of throw off something off the fly, so maybe we can come back and connect through Sana down the road, please. Sana, I think we're done with all the questions, right?
Yes. Yes.
Okay. So, I think we're done with all the questions from the pre-registered speakers. So all the items of business, as per the notice of the 78 th Annual General Meeting, have been taken up. I now declare the proceedings of this Annual General Meeting as completed. As mentioned earlier, the InstaPoll e-voting facility will continue to be available for 30 minutes after this meeting. And on behalf of our board and our management, I want to thank everyone for attending and for participating in this meeting. Thank you and be well. Thank you.