Infosys, which is facing a performance as well as insight deficit compared with its peers, has placed its bets on an outsider to steer the company out of the deep crisis it currently finds itself in.
The biggest challenge at Infosys, one that he wants to address first, is to get the sense of confidence back in the company, said Vishal Sikka, Infosys’ newly appointed CEO and MD.
“Infosys had it earlier. We need to bring it back. Infosys earlier believed that it could do anything. That came from the idea that we can learn anything. This feeling has to be restored,” he said.
Given his background with SAP and in product software, he reiterated that he would not be converting Infosys into a product company; that software services would remain its main business. “The endeavour is to be a services company and augment it with academic property-driven work.”
Sikka said that he would be jointly running the company with the chief operating officer Pravin Rao. While Rao will be based in Bangalore and look after daily operations, Sikka will work out of Silicon Valley and visit India on a regular basis.
Infosys, which is facing a performance as well as awareness deficit compared with its peers, has placed its bets on an outsider to steer the company out of the deep crisis it currently finds itself in. It’s struggling to grow and has seen its much vaunted industry-leading margins come under severe pressure. Attrition, close to 20%, is the worst amongst its peers and employee morale is at an all-time low.
Sikka, however, struck a confident note that Infosys would regain its “iconic status,” saying, “I personally believe that Infosys put India on the global technology map,” and that it would once again be the industry-leader because of what he called “the capabilities inside and the confidence outside.”
To grow again Infosys will focus on executing better its core business mainly application development & maintenance, and systems integration while scouting for appropriate acquisition opportunities, investing in startups, innovating more and developing more intellectual property. When pointed out that Infosys earlier too had tried to go up the value chain only to find that demand was still for work at the bottom end leading to an asymmetry in what it wanted to be and what customers wanted, he said that there was “no alternative to innovation.”
