726: The Opportunity Beyond Arbitrage | Manish Dugar, CFO, Mphasis

Published: Aug. 15, 2021, 6 p.m.

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Back in the early 2000s, the use of videoconferencing to conduct job interviews remained rather rare in most parts of the world\\u2014and India was no different.

What made Manish Dugar\\u2019s interview experience still rarer was the fact he had participated in 18 different video calls over a period of 3 months for a single job opportunity.

Says Dugar: \\u201cOver that span of interviews, I became almost as knowledgeable about IT services as any professional in that sector.\\u201d

Nonetheless, Dugar recalls, he had some reservations about Wipro Technologies, a tech services company based in Bangalore, India, that had recently begun to distinguish itself in a number of areas\\u2014including its thorough vetting of job candidates. \\xa0

\\u201cIt did not seem so exciting for me to leave a big name company in the north of India and relocate to the south to become part of an industry that was not as well known,\\u201d explains Dugar, who at the time was working for Coca-Cola India in Delhi.

What\\u2019s more, the Bangalore of 20 or more years ago was far different from the dynamic technology hub that it is known as today.

\\u201cThose who are familiar with India know that the south is much more cosmopolitan today and people can move around freely\\u2014but back in those days, the north was the north and the south was the south,\\u201d observes Dugar, who ultimately joined Wipro and quickly advanced upward into a series of financial management roles in which he observed firsthand the financial and operational levers required to scale the business to accommodate explosive growth.

\\u201cFrom 2001 to 2008, $150 million in revenue grew to become $8 billion,\\u201d reports Dugar, who\\u2014after several promotions within the company\\u2014was named CFO of Wipro Technologies roughly 7 years after his arrival.

Reflecting back on some of his early reservations about joining Wipro, Dugar says that he turned to his father, who had thus far seemed reluctant to possibly influence his son\\u2019s decisions.

Remembers Dugar: \\u201cHe told me, \\u2018If the company has done so many interviews, the position must be very important to them. It\\u2019s one thing to work for a company that has a big brand, but it\\u2019s another to work for a company that really values you.\\u2019\\u201d\\xa0\\u2013Jack Sweeney\\xa0

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