Azim Premji in Bangalore on Friday. (AFP)

Bangalore, April 22: Wipro Ltd will merge Wipro Spectramind, its business process outsourcing (BPO) subsidiary, with itself for the convenience of its customers. The new entity, which will be a division of Wipro, will be called Wipro BPO.

The company will also shift towards a high-value transaction processing model to meet customer demands.

Chairman Azim Premji said, ?Our BPO business is undergoing a strategic transformation. A key aspect of this transformation, apart from changing the revenue profile, is tighter integration with our vertical businesses. This will help us to build domain competency in our BPO business.

Wipro Spectramind chief executive officer Raman Roy said, ?Thirty eight per cent of our BPO business comes from our IT clients. They want to get a single invoice. A merger will help us focus on delivering technology services.?

The BPO employs 15,673 people (March 31, 2005) in its centres across the country.

It contributed 11 per cent of revenues of Rs 1,641 crore garnered by global IT services and products in the fourth quarter of 2004-05.

Wipro acquired Spectramind in 2002 at a cost of Rs 420 crore. At that time, Spectramind?s annual business was $11 million with 2,500 employees. In 2003-04, the revenues spiralled to $95 million with an employee headcount of 13,300.