BackWe need a leader who is visionary: B.G. Srinivas
Srinivas speaks about the future of the company's much-debated 3.0 strategy and the kind of leader that Infosys needs
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Bangalore: B.G. Srinivas, president and board member at India’s second largest software services exporter Infosys Ltd, is widely seen as one of the front runners to take over as its first non-founder chief executive officer (CEO), after co-founder S.D. Shibulal retires.
Srinivas, who emerged as the highest-paid executive at Infosys in 2013-14 along with Stephen Pratt who resigned last November, has over the years managed key businesses including banking, financial services and manufacturing, and currently oversees nearly $3 billion (around ₹ 18,000 crore) of the company’s business. In a phone interview from London on Wednesday, Srinivas spoke about the future of the company’s much-debated 3.0 strategy, the state and relevance of the Indian information technology (IT) industry and the kind of leader that Infosys needs as it prepares for its biggest leadership transition. Edited excerpts:
As a board member and company veteran of nearly 15 years, what kind of leader do you think Infosys needs as it prepares itself for the CEO transition?
We need a leader who is a visionary, who has the ability to see not only what is happening today, but also has the ability to see what’s happening in the marketplace. (He should have) the ability to articulate and execute on the strategy. Also equally important, (he should be someone who) has the ability to...ensure in terms of performance. These are some of the traits that one would look forward to in an individual who has in the past executed in terms of performance in all these dimensions and has the ability to also adapt and drive change for the enterprise, which is extremely important, because there is a lot of change happening in client organizations and within the technology spectrum.
So such a leader could come from within the company, or be an external candidate...
Yes. I don’t want to comment on what the nominations committee is looking at, but it has been made very evident that all the options are on the table—both internal and external.
The IT services industry is facing challenging times because of automation, disruptive technologies such as Watson, International Business Machine Corp.’s artificial intelligence computer system, and from clients like General Electric who are developing their own technology solutions. Are large Indian IT firms such as Infosys doing enough to address these challenges and stay relevant in the next 5-10 years?
We’re focusing on multiple things. We can’t be good at just one thing and as we have articulated in our 3.0 strategy, we want to be relevant to our clients—today and also tomorrow. In this context, the partner ecosystem becomes a very strategic and integral part of our enterprise (today), as well as tomorrow, because the partner ecosystem could be your clients, technology partners—SAP or Oracle PeopleSoft—or competitors.
We’re already working with competitors where we supply these applications and innovate on that; we work closely with infrastructure providers, which could be competition, and sometimes it could be the client. The market out here is going to become much more complex and sophisticated. Hence when we have to build our strategy and stay relevant, it’s not just about focusing on services and current client needs, but we also have to look at our clients’ future needs because they are evolving, and competition tomorrow can come from anywhere...that’s where our partners come in. A large part of our 3.0 strategy is about co-creation.
What happens to your 3.0 strategy in the light of the decision to hive-off products and platforms?
The 3.0 strategy is all about relevance in the context of the client. I don’t think any internal structure would come in the way.
Today, we’re working with IT and BPO (business process outsourcing)—BPO is a subsidiary and has always been a subsidiary. That is just a legal structure. I don’t think any internal or legal structure would come in the way of our go-to-market (strategy). We’re still one company and one client partner and manage all service lines for our clients...at the same time we have kept our go-to-market approach very simple, very focused on industry verticals, a single point contact as far as our clients our concerned...committed to bringing the best of Infosys to them irrespective of how our internal structures are.
Since Murthy’s return to Infosys last year, measures such as increased focus on traditional businesses, protecting top 25-50 accounts and reducing costs, have been put in place. Will you follow the same strategy, or change it, over the next 12 months?
The focus is on staying relevant to our clients’ business. Secondly, increasing sales effectiveness and strengthen our partnerships with clients. We’re also benchmarking some of the solutions and the way we put things together, including our proposals...we’re trying to ensure that the market coverage is increased. On the delivery front, in order to stay relevant, there will be significant focus on extreme automation, focus on effort-productivity improvement, focus on service-level differentiation and significant focus on piecing together solutions which are relevant to our clients.
Infosys has always had aspirations of performing above industry benchmarks. When do we start seeing some of these measures translate into performance?
I can’t put a date on that, but we are at it, we are extremely committed and am happy to see everyone in Infosys working towards it.
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