Case Study

Driven by Quality,
Wipro Improves
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
with CMMI® V2.0

The Business Need

“Quality, like integrity, is simply non-negotiable,” notes Wipro Chairman Azim Premji. This phrase sets
the entire organization’s standard benchmark on how each team member views quality. It is an essential
part of Wipro’s overall business strategy and plays a vital role in their results and how they approach
continuous improvement.

As a leader in global information technology, consulting, and business

process services, Wipro has three key business objectives at the Company Background
organizational level: increase customer satisfaction, improve operating Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE:
WIPRO) is a leading global information technology,
margin, and grow revenue. As part of their need to meet these
consulting, and business process services
objectives and align with quality expectations, Wipro identified several company.
specific areas of focus: They harness the power of cognitive computing,
hyper-automation, robotics, cloud, analytics, and
• Productivity improvement emerging technologies to help their clients adapt to
the digital world and succeed in business. A
• Effort adherence
company recognized globally for its comprehensive
• Fatal functionality defects reduction portfolio of services, strong commitment to
• Post-delivery defect reduction sustainability, and corporate citizenship, Wipro has
over 160,000 dedicated employees serving clients
• Reduction of defect rejection in testing across six continents. Together, they discover
• Bug fix productivity improvement ideas and connect the dots to build a better and
bolder future.
• Test case development and execution improvement
For more information, go to wipro.com

The Solution
Wipro has been a leader in quality and an early adopter of Capability
Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) practices since its inception, using
it to fuel their organizational growth over the years. Wipro was
the world’s first company to be assessed at Maturity Level 5 for the
Software Engineering Institute’s first version of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) in the late 1990s. It also
was one of the first IT companies to adopt Six Sigma methodology and Lean practices, institutionalizing

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Lean 2.0, CMMI, and Cognitive Quality Management System (QMS) bots to improve their customers’ digital
experience. When CMMI V2.0 was introduced, Wipro knew it would be the next step in their quality improvement
journey. Designed to optimize business performance in an ever-changing global landscape, CMMI V2.0 is a
proven set of global best practices that enables organizations to build and benchmark the key capabilities that
address their most common business challenges.

As they always do when faced with new best practices that could help them improve, Wipro quickly
determined the relevancy of CMMI V2.0, how to tailor it to their organizational processes, and the steps
needed to embrace and institutionalize the improvements to make them sustainable.

CMMI V2.0 contains multiple customized views that apply to different

business environments, enabling organizations to create a view of the
model that meets their specific performance improvement needs. Wipro
Wipro quickly
felt that the Development View, which helps organizations improve key
capabilities in the development of products, components, and services,
determined
would best fit their needs. They conducted a CMMI V2.0 Development the relevancy of CMMI
View Benchmark Appraisal, targeting Maturity Level 5 with a focus on V2.0, how to tailor it
increased productivity, defect detection, and predictable delivery for to their organizational
development, testing, maintenance projects, and support functions for
processes, and
the entire organization.
the steps needed
Wipro aligned the Critical to Quality (CTQ) metrics of their CMMI V2.0 to embrace and
adoption to meet their business objectives of increasing customer
institutionalize the
satisfaction, improving operating margin, and growing revenue.
For example, they linked metrics related to reducing defects to increasing
improvements to make
customer satisfaction and aligned metrics related to productivity related them sustainable.
to improving their operating margin.

Devender Malhotra, Vice President and Global Head of Quality and Enterprise Risk Management at Wipro notes
of their journey, “Wipro has once again proven that we are the pioneers in quality processes. The CMMI journey
has helped us develop a culture of process transformation with predictable delivery.” Developing processes
that met the intent of CMMI practices ensured that Wipro had a structured and disciplined way of delivery that
increased consistency and organizational success. CMMI V2.0 ensured that Wipro remained on their journey
of continuous improvement to create a culture of uncompromising quality.

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Results
With CMMI V2.0, Wipro has been able to better support their clients on their transformational
journeys. This improvement is reflected in their Net Promoter Score (NPS), which improved
486 basis points from 2017 to 2018. Wipro’s President and Chief Operating Officer Bhanumurthy B. M.
says that “the CMMI journey has been instrumental in achieving a high level of customer satisfaction and will
ensure that Wipro remains an industry leader in quality.”

Specifically, CMMI V2.0 enabled Wipro to:

“The CMMI journey has
• Significantly improve Critical to Quality (CTQ) metric and business
objective performance
been instrumental in
• Identify root causes and implement processes to sustain revenues, achieving a high level of
retain customers, and increase growth, customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction
and operating margins and will ensure that
• Strengthen Wipro’s processes through a focus on Governance Wipro remains an
• Identify methods to sustain benefits by focusing on process
industry leader in
sub-metrics, action item management involving clients, and
significant changes in resource management practices
quality.”
Bhanumurthy B. M.
Wipro’s “aha moment” throughout their continuous improvement journey President and Chief Operating
involved using Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer, Wipro
techniques for building predictive models based on historic project data.
This gave project managers:

• Additional support to achieve required CTQ metric goals

• More control of CTQ metrics
• Increased anticipation of business objectives from the prediction
model

Senior managers are also now able to use statistical analysis to make decisions, ensuring that organizational
conclusions are based on data analysis and not on qualitative comments.

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The penetration level of work completed by bots in fixed price projects improved from 3.0% in Q2 (FY 2018-19) to
6.7% in Q3 (FY 2018-19). The appraisal team applauded Wipro’s unique usage of intelligent automation, their ability
to optimize project delivery, and their utilization of cutting-edge technologies like neural networks and Machine
Learning to optimize processes in conjunction with CMMI. Their CMMI Maturity Level 5 appraisal highlighted Wipro’s
innovation and reflected the organization’s particular regard for quality. As Wipro President and COO Bhanumurthy
B. M. reiterates, “this appraisal showcases Wipro’s commitment to deliver high-quality solutions, great customer
experience, and strong alignment of our processes with business objectives.”

Key Takeaways
Focus Internally to Improve the Client Experience
Wipro’s experience demonstrates that the best way to improve the external client experience is to improve the
organization internally. Internal changes set the company’s culture and priorities, reflecting outward towards
customers to improve their every interaction with the organization.

Always Aim to Improve Quality

Quality is the sun at the center of Wipro’s solar system – it is the guiding principle that has helped the organization
achieve high maturity and continuous improvement. As part of their commitment to quality and innovation,
Wipro has been driven to find proven solutions – like CMMI – to meet their most important objectives.

Don’t be Afraid of Innovation and Change

Wipro is always ready to introduce change into the organization if it will lead to performance improvement.
Wipro’s early adoption of CMMI V2.0 is a case in point along with their use of cutting-edge technologies to achieve
their goals. Quality is the driver and innovation that has propelled Wipro to achieve their high-quality standards.

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 The Wipro Quality Journey
1995-1998 1999-2004 2005-2006 1997-2011 2012-2019

• ISO 9001 certified • 6 Sigma • Lean for S/W • OHSAS 18001 • CMMI DEV V2.0 view
in 1995 (Methodology for development • CMMI-DEV V1.2 • ISO 9001 UK, China
• World’s first Continuous • Agile Adoption • Wipro Way Development Center
company to be Improvement) • ISO 13485 for medical institutionalized • CMMI-DEV V1.3
assessed at CMMI • ISO 14001 devices domain • CMMI-SVC V1.3
Maturity Level 5 • World’s first PCMM • CMMI-DEV V1.1 Level 5 • DMM
Level 5 software • ISO 27001 • TMMI ML5
company • IS020000 • Agile Next
• Industry specific • World’s first • Lean 2.0
quality standards Automotive SPICE • Integrated Audits
by way of TL 9000 • AS9100 • Process Digitization
• CMMI V1.1
• Next Gen Delivery
• BS7799
• DevOps
• Infused Statistical
• Cognitive QMS - Bots
rigor at Management
cadre
• Software Process
Achievement Award
IEEE USA
• Orthogonal Arrays,
DMAIC/DSSS+
frameworks launched

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