Everyone in the industry is talking and writing about Infosys and the reappointment of Narayanamurthy to be at the helm of things. So here goes my two cents on what I understand and see...
Let me be honest on how much I know about Infosys - I was reading a bit about the company because I was interviewing with them a few months ago and I wanted to see if I would be able to add any value to their overall vision at any level.
From what I have observed in the last few years, since the time of the sub prime crisis in the US and the global economic meltdown, strategies have changed through all the IT Services companies.
Saving cost and providing cost effective solutions seemed to be what every CIO wanted, especially in the core and giant customers.
While every IT Service provider was scurrying frantically to find pieces of cloth to cover their hind parts, Infosys went ahead to build the "enterprise for tomorrow" for their partners... it appeared ambitious and I must admit only an Infosys or a TCS could even afford to think of proposing such a thing and I really think we must appreciate the Infosys 3.0 for its sheer guts. Maybe it was just bad timing.
But where I think it faltered and went wrong was with winning and retaining existing large/core customers - as their goals and vision where badly juxtaposed with the ambitious ones of Infosys. It is quite natural for the sales teams to get carried away by something as phenomenal as Infosys 3.0 but it is just unfortunate that the global customer base was too worried about today and not able to think or plan big for tomorrow.
I strongly believe that a leadership team or a leader of an IT Services company should have a good mixture of Sales, Technology and have a constant watch on what we have in our hands today. Investments can be made aggressively in a booming market but when things are sluggish just keeping every penny close to us and ensuring the existing customers are happy.
You never know but 9 out of 10 times there are opportunities within the same customers. Proactive thinking and solutioning, helping customers with their goals even if detrimental to ours actually wins in the long run.
The right word to explain the situation is that the market is now SATURATED. Every avenue has been explored widely and now is the time where we are only left with option to dig deeper.
Talking about the leadership team there is not much difference to expect within IT Services company in India as all of them follow the standard Income - Profit = Expenses formula for profitability. Bigger the company the more number of seconds you get to gasp for a breath... BUT bottomline is we are all gasping for breath
About Narayanamurthy, no offence to him, he is just in at the right time and will be able to ride a bit on what has happened in the last few years and get things back with just a little bit of tweaking... of course would involve a lot of hard work and he brings his son to help him out in this venture... typical clichéd hereditary bonding...
Setting aside competition within the market and in the general interest of the market, Infosys SHOULD do well in the coming days as they are the pioneers and only large players such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro have the muscle power to pull things through and thereby paving the way for the rest of the industry to march behind.
