Sherwood site taken as Wipro calls hub
An international information technology company announced Tuesday that it plans to hire 400 people over two years at a new customer-service center in Sherwood.
Wipro Limited of India said it will invest $3 million to create a call center after renovating a 70,000-squarefoot building at 5430 Landers Road, former location of a Cardinal Health System customer-service operation.
Nagendra P. Bandaru, managing partner of Wipro Limited, said in a news release that the company is “thrilled” to open the center in Sherwood.
“This strategic investment will bring Wipro’s innovation, operational capabilities and organizational expertise to the region,” he said. “This is part of our commitment to enable future expansion and drive employment generation initiatives for local communities.’’
Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman Young said the company is a welcome addition to the community adjacent to North Little Rock.
“This is a great opportunity to create jobs and have people come to work in Sherwood,” the mayor said Tuesday. “This is good not only for Sherwood, it’s good for the region as a whole and the surrounding communities.”
The 2020 census reported Sherwood’s population at 32,731, an increase of
about 3,200 over 10 years. “It’s a healthy growth rate and with that increase we need more opportunities like this to put people to work,” she said.
The facility sits on 6.83 acres just off U.S. 67/167, and will be retrofitted to accommodate Wipro, which is planning to serve businesses across various sectors from the site. The company provides data, analytics, information technology and consulting services to more than a dozen industries in the health care, energy, banking, communications, education, insurance, retail and transportation sectors.
In Sherwood, the company will provide call-center support for businesses that outsource their customer-service operations to Wipro.
Like Welspun Tubular, an Indian company that operates a pipe mill at the Port of Little Rock, Wipro is a well-recognized brand with operations across the globe, said James Reddish, executive vice president of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce.
“Wipro globally is one of the oldest and most important Indian run technology companies on the planet,” Reddish said Tuesday. “It speaks to the quality of the community that a company of this size and scale selected Sherwood for a new location.”
Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the expansion to Sherwood by an international company strengthens state efforts to attract information technology companies.
“Wipro has been a technology leader for decades,” the governor said in a statement Tuesday. “With great pleasure, I welcome them to Arkansas. These jobs will help improve the lives of citizens in Central Arkansas and continue to reinforce our goal of making Arkansas a leader in information technology.”
A spokesperson for the state Commerce Department said Tuesday that officials are still working with Wipro to finalize any incentives the company may be eligible to earn.
Hathaway Group, which helped broker the purchase of the building by Cardinal Sherwood LLC for $7 million in January 2019, was marketing the site as a high-tech corporate office facility with a leasing rate of about $665,000 annually with the tenant responsible for structural maintenance and repairs in addition to rent, property taxes and insurance premiums, according to a flyer.
The Sherwood building was renovated in 2018.
“This was a great location for them and that building, from my understanding, was in very good condition,” Young said.
Wipro said it is the ninthlargest employer in India with more than 200,000 workers serving customers on six continents. Its headquarters are in Bangalore, which claims to be the center of India’s high-tech industry. The company is valued at about $12 billion.