Hong Kong

How Wipro established its presence in Hong Kong amid tech disruptions

During a series of massive local protests in 2019, organisations across various sectors in Hong Kong started ramping up their digital transformation initiatives. The COVID-19 crisis in 2020 further added to the necessity of remote working and mitigating risk across the value chain, to keep pace with the present and the estimated future market demand.

As every industry started to adjust to new ways of working and engaging with their stakeholders, even the technology industry continued to grow and evolve to address customer demands and secure market share.

Fintech and Insurtech integrate technology and financial services to enhance customer experience and drive efficiency and competitiveness. Examples include chatbots, robo-advisories, open APIs, automated and fast money transfers called FPS, real-time stock quotes, etc.

Data security is another motivator for banks to digitise and retain the customer’s confidence in the banking system. While customer behaviour drove every financial institution to offer digital banking services, the HKMA awarded virtual banking licenses to 8 firms in 2019 with an aim to begin operations in 2020.

Hong Kong is one of the world’s earliest adopters of next-generation 5G mobile broadband services. While the current mobile broadband standard, 4G-LTE, is only capable of enabling download speeds of 1 gigabit per second, the 5G standard is expected to have a maximum download rate of 10 gigabits per second. It will also offer significantly less latency, enabling faster load times for content such as full, high-definition videos.

All major CSPs in Hong Kong are revamping their internal networks as well as their CRM capabilities with the bundling of other services like promotions, BRM, online charging features, customer loyalty, etc. Wipro has one of the most competent telecom BUs with very strong credentials and a brand portfolio.

Extended reality (XR) is another growing trend that’s extremely visible in Hong Kong. AR, VR, and mixed reality together constitute XR, said to be worth $200+ billion by 2022. Hong Kong-based cosmetic company, Sephora, uses AR technology to allow customers to digitally try out different cosmetic products on their faces and decide the best products for themselves. This boosts sales and provides customers a fun way to try out new looks.

Similarly, the IKEA Place app lets customers scan their rooms and design the spaces digitally using IKEA products to visualise new looks. The Dulux Visualiser helps customers try out a shade of paint for their homes before they buy it - customers can simply use a smartphone camera to scan their homes and paint them virtually using any color of their choosing.

Retailers in Hong Kong are enhancing their UI/UX-optimised platforms that incorporate loyalty programs, memberships, promotions, payments, and supply chain management to fulfill the end-to-end customer experience. This helps to ensure consumer retention at a time when loyalties run thin. However, this needs integration capabilities between enterprise applications (A2A) and partners (B2B) for which companies are building middleware platforms.

In addition, the presence of a complex event-processing rule engine speeds up responsiveness on the part of retailers and businesses. Also, with the exponential rise in the number of events and mobile applications, scalability is a must-have along with a cloud-friendly platform with optimised costs and a faster time-to-market. Even smaller retailers such as SHEIN, Give Gift, Taobao, and Tmall have moved to online platforms and e-commerce sites, selling directly to their end customers.

These efforts are further being facilitated and boosted by the Hong Kong government in the midst of the pandemic. The Hong Kong government has rolled out a series of financial grants and support initiatives including the SME Financing Guarantee Scheme that allows SMEs to tap into loans of up to HK $2 million that are fully guaranteed by the government.

In the post COVID era, not only has business behavior changed dramatically, but also the way consumers behave, work, buy, or entertain. A Coresight Research survey found that 27.5% of Hong Kong’s internet users were avoiding public places.

E-payment provider Octopus Cards, which accounts for 80% of the city's stored-value facility market, reported that transaction volumes and value have grown by a double-digit percentage. The monthly average transaction amount of the O! ePay MasterCard went up by 60% as well.

Hong Kong has always been a focus for Wipro. We have aggressive plans to drive our localisation strategy and establish a strong foothold in the Hong Kong market. Our global customer engagement experience will support our efforts in accelerating growth in the region.

We have extensive experience working with some of the leaders in the industry, which will help us drive our strategy and achieve our plans for Hong Kong. Our global alliances, advisory, and analyst collaborations are helping us engage with strategic prospects in the Hong Kong market actively and efficiently.

Wipro has recently gained significant traction among telecom, financial services, retail, utilities, and manufacturing patrons in Hong Kong. The company has significantly built its local presence by hiring a native workforce, collaborating with local advisories, and statutory establishments.

Whether it be a virtual banking license, HKMA digital initiative, 5G rollout, or retailers migrating their PoS to the cloud, Wipro is well engaged in Hong Kong across all industry segments and growing at the fastest pace. Wipro has also partnered with industry-specific niche advisory firms in Hong Kong for better and easier market reach.

Hong Kong’s proximity to China, Japan, and ASEAN countries, the locally available multi-lingual talent pool, and our knowledge of the local culture and business are huge benefits that Wipro is prepared to leverage and encash upon.

In addition to the current dynamic talent acquisition network that Wipro has established in Hong Kong, we also plan to initiate campus recruitment drives and launch training and skills development programs with local partners in Hong Kong. These recruits will then undergo a competency evaluation test and be deputed to projects accordingly.