With automation and digitisation taking centre-stage, Wipro plans to “redeploy” thousands of engineers as its existing business is getting increasingly commoditised.

According to at least four senior people in the know, India’s third-largest software exporter has decided to ‘redeploy’ 15,000 engineers across the country and in all departments. A sizeable number are working on projects in Banking and Financial Services (BFSI) and energy & utilities verticals, with 6-9 years’ experience, sources told BusinessLine .

Redeployment involves putting employees on the bench where they will be given a chance to either re-skill or find opportunities inside or outside the company. However, many employees leave, industry watchers said. This action was initiated in July, said some employees that BusinessLine spoke to.

However, a Wipro spokesperson said: “There is absolutely no truth in these rumours and we strongly deny any such speculation.”

Wipro gets more than 80 per cent of its business from traditional services such as application maintenance.

“Clients have got smarter and do not care about the number of people working in a project but are more interested in how IT can result in some kind of quantifiable outcome,” according to Rajiv Kaul, who was the youngest MD of Microsoft India and is now Executive Vice Chairman and CEO at CMS.

In the first quarter of this fiscal, Wipro ‘released’ around 1,100 people due to automation. At the end of first quarter, Wipro had close to 174,000 employees

With new CEO Abidali Neemuchwala taking over the reigns a couple of quarters back, there has been an additional thrust on training. He has said the company will train 10,000 employees in digital technologies this fiscal and plans are on to train another 20,000 employees. Cross town rival Infosys has made similar efforts and has trained around 80,000 employees in ‘Design Thinking’.

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