Acquisition is like steroids, says Nandan

Entrepreneurship and risk-taking go hand in hand. It was a big risk when NR

Narayana Murthy, Ashoka Arora and Nandan M. Nilekani, along with a handful of

young professionals decided to float Infosys. The risk paid off and today,

Infosys Technologies has become a major global IT player.

In its silver jubilee year, Infosys is galloping on the fast track of growth.

Its chief mentor and founder Narayana Murthy has decided to step down as the

chairman of the company. The task of carrying forward his legacy has fallen

squarely on the shoulders of Nilekani, the CEO.

 

Srinivas R and Majnu Babu of CyberMedia News interviewed Nilekani

to get an insight into Infosys' roadmap. The excerpts:






Can you recall three challenges that you faced in the last 25 years?

The first one was during the inception of Infosys 25 years back. A few young

professionals, under the leadership of N R Narayana Murthy, decided to start a

company. At that time proprietorship firms, large companies and to some extent

MNCs were the major players. The very idea of people from the middle class

starting a new venture was novel and considered risky.

The second challenge came when one of our founders Ashoka Arora decided to

part ways. It took us sometime to reconcile to the fact that one of us was

leaving. It made us to introspect. It also made us to think whether we would be

able to cope up with the global competition.

The third challenge was when we decided to list on Nasdaq in 1999. It was a

big step because ours was the first Indian company to do so. Harmonizing Indian

and the US economic systems was a big challenge. Also, we knew we would come

under much glare.






What would be the focus of Infosys for the next 10 years?

One of our key goals is continue to help the customers transform their

businesses. Globally, we are among the top 100 companies today. But we need to

be within the top few. Our second goal is to be within the top few and be

globally respected for our ethos. Third goal is to continue with our innovations

to help the customers in business transformation. We believe that IT industry

has dramatically reordered with faster, better ways of doing things. We

recognized this in early stage and introduced and executed the global delivery

model. By doing this, we have changed the rule of the game. Legacy firms from

the West ignored this phenomenon. Now they have realized it and are reluctantly

embracing it. We have changed the rules of the industry; we have set agenda and

made others to follow our example.






MNCs like IBM are bringing huge investment to India. They are also targeting
the domestic market. Is Infosys looking to address more on domestic market?

We are addressing the domestic market. Our banking product Finacle is well

accepted and has over 70 per cent market share. We will continue to offer our

products and services in the domestic market. Our model is always to operate in

India to address the global opportunity. We feel that there is immense

opportunity in the global market and the need of the hour is to take advantage

of this opportunity and change the rules of the game.






One of the financial analysts was comparing Infosys to Toyota. Growth without
acquisition. Do you think you can sustain this growth without any acquisition in

the long run?

We are in a market where lots of changes and shifts are happening. We think

we are in the early stages of transformation. Our business model has helped us

to have this sustained growth. In a way, yes, we are like Toyota- growing

organically. Having said that, I would like to add that we are still an IT

services company. In this space acquisitions make sense when you need a specific

capability or when you find that the acquisition will bring a value addition to

the existing line of business. You really don't need to acquire to grow. We

are in the process of creating the next generation business, in that sense we

are investing. Fundamentally in our structure there is lot of scope for organic

growth. I think organisations should have an organic growth. Growing on

acquisition is like participating in Olympics on steroids.






Now many companies follow similar models like that of your global delivery
model. In this sense, are you developing GDM version 2 or something of that sort

to have an edge over others?

First of all, the leadership position has already been taken. Infosys is the

leader. It is not possible for tier II or tier III companies to catch up. We

have convinced the world that ours is a superior model. At the same time, we can't

sit still. Customers now want more value for money, best of expectations, best

of business knowledge etc. Infosys is working towards achieving all this.






Today, global companies are looking at different location like Eastern
Europe, Russia, China and Philippines for offshoring. Do you think Infosys needs

to open centres there for business advantage?

Our business model has been built as location independent. We have centers

based on customer's expectations and where resources/skills are available. It

is based on needs. We are expanding our presence in Canada, Mauritius, London

and Eastern Europe.






Over the last few years, there has been much fluctuation in the price of
rupee and dollar. Do you think IT exports will be affected by rupee getting

stronger?

It's a question of mindset. The fluctuation is always there. It is good

news if rupee becomes stronger. Oil prices will come down.






Currently Infosys has 50,000 employees for $2 billion revenue. If Infosys has
to look at $10 billion revenues, what would be your total employee strength?

This is a question even we are most often discussing. I don't want to

predict any numbers. One has to go by the business requirement. I cannot say how

many employees we might have for $10 billion revenue.






On the reservation front, it seems the government has not accepted the
recommendation of the Knowledge Commission. Do you think Knowledge Commission

has become redundant?

I don't think so. Knowledge commission is still relevant.






© CyberMedia News