Infosys - Will Mr. Sikka recreate the Infy Magic?

So it's confirmed! Mr. Vishal Sikka will be the new CMD of Infosys Technologies. And Mr. Murthy and Family has finally decided to bid adieu Infy. I am not sure which is better news of the two. As media and experts had mentioned time and again that any new CMD in the presence of Mr. Murthy would remain a puppet and might not be able to bring any transformational changes, it appears these two announcements are complementary to each other.

Infosys needed a new CMD as much as it needed him/her to perform independently. And with Mr. Morhty & Co. stepping down, it is now for the first time that Infosys fate lies completely in the hands of a non-founder and in this case a non-infoscion as well. Sikka is not only a non-infoscion, he is also a non-services background professional. His primary skills have predominately been in products space with SAP Labs where was the first CTO.

It will be interesting to watch how Infosys story unfolds in Non-founder driven era, however as an ex-infoscion and a careful observer of Infosys, i am now utilizing my rights to express my prediction:

Almost all non-performing Indian IT services outsourcing companies are claiming that line between services offerings and product offerings is blurring continuously and soon the market will be completely product driven. I completely disagree with this notion, this is a mere excuse to hide non-performance with self-prophecy of changing dynamic of outsourcing industry. Indian IT sector has grown on labour arbitrage and has to grow on the same unless we create Apple, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle and more recently Facebook and Whatsapp in India. Our strength lies in re-creation and not in creation and we must appreciate this fact and capitalize on it. China is not ashamed of cheap products it makes for the entire world, rather it has amassed trillion of US dollars as forex reserves with its core strength - Huge Scale, Cheap Labour. China has done it in Manufacturing, we have to do it in IT where we already have made some in-roads.

Being some one from a completely Product driven environment, it is likely for Sikka to focus more on product offerings than rely on bread-and-butter business of Application, Development and Maintenance (ADM) on which Indian outsourcing survives and thrives. He has to make a fine balance between these two, where with my prediction, I doubt he will succeed.

The other challenge he is going to face is his one-down line of managers, which will be a completely new set of Sr. VP's considering all those who grew with Infosys in past two decades have either left the company in the past one year or are on the verge of sending 'last day' emails.(Some will certainly leave in next 1-2 months citing differences with Sikka's working style).

Victory brings responsibilities - so claims Mr. Modi, and so should be motto of Mr. Sikka as well. My prediction goes against him with 30:70 of his success:failure in reviving Infosys. But may this be birth of a new biz star and brand new Infosys. Only time will tell!!

सफलता - शांति - ईमानदारी

सफलता का सिर्फ एक मापदंड होता है - मन कि शांति । और मन कि शांति का सिर्फ एक उपाय है - अपने आप से ईमानदारी ॥ 

Infosys - what's going wrong!!

Yes, it's not a question mark but an exclamation mark. The reason is simple, it seems other than the few who are deciding future for the company, everybody else knows what's going wrong and what the company should do to come out of the current mess.

The world changed, the Indian outsourcing industry business model changed, client's expectations changed, everything changed but what dint change - the management theories and principals of Infosys. They did not and have still not realized that what worked in the early stage of their growth story will not kick again. The processes, software delivery execution, labour arbitrage, all this have become commodities now and clients in the west now know names of Indian IT services firms other than TCS and Infosys as well. The global giants such as IBM and Accenture have learned the services outsourcing trick too and can easily downplay smaller firms on the basis of economies of scale.

But wait, if these global problems are hurting it then it should be same for TCS, Cognizant and HCL as well, then why only Infosys is feeling the heat. Yeah, so there comes the problem of old school of management. The CEO search which became headlines now, should have been questioned right when Mr. Nandan took over from Mr. Murhty. Many of you will wonder why, as Nandan had the best run for the company under his leadership. But the bigger question here is of CEO succession planning. If I am not wrong, many of you would also agree that even if there was a test then to choose CEO, Nandan surely would have cleared the test with flying colours. And then that would have set up a clear direction for Mr. Kris and Mr. Shibulal to either learn the tricks of the game or stay out of the CEO race. As what Shibulal faced in his tenure may very well be outcome of policy decisions made during Kris CEO term. If they had already decided that all four will become CEO - come what may - then the company should not have gone public unless all four had completed their term as CEO. It is not only illogical but unethical as well for a publicly listed company to run like a privately owned one (I know Mr. Murthy considers Infy as his child, still!)

And then the stubbornness of the company to not to lower its margins though it kept loosing clients to peers (mostly HCL which grabbed maximum number of clients) in the last few years. The premium pricing which it thought it commands in the market because of brand value, was a farce. When the entire world was running through financial crisis and geographies which provide bread and butter to Indian outsourcing sector were in deep financial problems, and the clients were looking for cost-effectiveness, the company remained aggressive on pricing on the basis of its brand name solely. The peers, who already had developed delivery excellence at par with Infy, were quick to react to the changed dynamics and client expectations took on this opportunity to closed on Infy expired deals.

So, more than a fresh new CEO, perhaps the pressing need is to get out of old clutches, create a new line of dynamic leaders who read and react to the market more sharply and restore its glory back. With Nasscom predicting around 15% growth for FY14-15 for IT sector, the opportunity to bring back growth is right there, it is just the question "Does it really want to get back on the right track!!"