INDIA: The sudden goodbye between SAP and its innovation star Vishal Sikka, a name incidentally synonymous with its in-memory engine breakthrough HANA, had left a lot of grapevine mills and speculation going berserk.
But the dust of guess-making has settled now and industry watchers are sharing their thoughts on the new role he has donned back home at Infosys.
Partha Iyengar, Country Manager - Research, Gartner India views the news of Dr. Sikka's announcement as extremely important for Infosys since it ends the uncertainty that was the main enemy of Infosys.
He observes, "The new CEO will have to move very quickly to first calm the three key stakeholders, employees, customers and the investors, in that order. Infosys cannot afford any more resource departures especially at senior levels. He will next have to establish credibility with those stake-holders, again, in a fairly short period and then energize them in the medium to long term. The medium term strategy will have to be fairly close to the knitting of the IT Services industry - anything else will create a level of confusion and uncertainty again.
The announcement highlights an increased realization within the company to get a fresh perspective to its culture, processes, and business by bringing an outside-in perspective. Vishal's proven experience as a leader and innovator is expected to help Infosys, as per Manish Bahl, Vice President and Country Manager for India, Forrester Research.
"In order to be successful, we believe Vishal will have to run two set of priorities in parallel: 1) Continue to focus on traditional IT services deals to meet market and shareholder's expectations; 2) Develop new capabilities for Infosys to win in the digital world."
He recommends further on how Vishal will have to immediately focus on the following areas: "Learn and understand Infosys culture and prioritize changes that need to be reflected within the company to get Infosys' brand story back on track. Address attrition-related challenges to strengthen employees confidence into the system and leverage his product/platform experience to develop new capabilities for Infosys."
As Iyengar also opines, Dr. Sikka will also have to become a 'visible' standard bearer for the Infosys brand, something that the Indian IT Services still need at the level of maturity they are at.
Welcome Dr. Sikka and we all would be looking forward to a new metier here.
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