Wipro Wins Its Largest Deal Worth $1.6 Billion from U.S.-Based Alight Solutions

Indian infotech company Wipro has bagged a $1.6 billion deal, its largest so far, from the United States-based Alight Solutions LLC, the Bengaluru-headquartered firm announced on Sept. 2. Under the 10-year contract, Wipro will provide a comprehensive suite of services and solutions to digitally transform the health, wealth, HR, and financial solutions that the Lincolnshire, Illinois-based company provides its customers across the world.

With this deal, Wipro becomes the second company in India to win a multi-billion-dollar contract after Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) which has, since December 2017, finalized three large deals worth $5.6 billion.

The contract follows the announcement in July this year when Wipro had said it was investing $117 million in Alight and acquiring its India captive unit, Alight HR Services India Private Limited. Alight HR Services India, earlier known as Aon HR Services India, employs about 9,000 workers across its offices in Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai and Chennai.

Following the recent deal, Wipro, India’s fourth largest software services company, will earn about $150-160 million every year for 10 years.

“This engagement will enable the digital transformation of Alight’s offerings across health, wealth, HR and finance solutions, and enhance the employee experience of Alight’s clients by leveraging Wipro’s industry-leading strengths in digital technologies, cognitive automation and data analytics,” the company said in a statement.

“Our industry-leading partnership with Wipro will enhance our client experience by drawing on Wipro’s leading position in automation and innovation, while allowing Alight to invest in its health, wealth and cloud-based solutions to meet the needs of our clients,” Chris Michalak, Chief Executive Officer, Alight Solutions, said.

“We are delighted to be chosen by Alight as their long-term strategic partner in their enterprise transformation journey to bring digital experiences and offerings to employees and employers globally, said Wipro CEO Abidali Neemuchwala. “This is a testimony to the capabilities we have built through our strategic investments in Wipro Digital, cloud platforms and cognitive platform Wipro HOLMES. We will leverage this expertise to digitalize and modernize Alight’s core across platforms, technologies and operations.”

The agreement brings a much-needed boost for Neemuchwala, who assumed the role in February 2016 and has been trying to revive the company by securing larger deals. New-Delhi-based HCL Technologies recently dislodged Wipro as the country’s third largest software services company.

Wipro’s last big win was the $1.1 billion outsourcing contract with Canadian logistics firm Atco in June 2014. In that deal too, Wipro had acquired ATCO’s IT subsidiary for $195 million along with 500 employees in India.

Wipro reported net profit of $307.55 million in the June-ended quarter, marking a rise of 2 percent from the same period a year ago, according to Moneycontrol.com. Revenue from IT services increased 5 percent year-on-year to $2 billion during the previous quarter.

Alight, which has 14 global delivery centers and over 1,400 customers, was the technology outsourcing business of top-ranked HR firm Aon Hewitt. Aon sold the company in 2017 to private equity company Blackstone, which relaunched it as a private entity.