Looking within: Infosys turns to employees for new ideas to be scaled up as business offerings

A core objective of the ‘Be The Navigator Business Incubator’ programme, which is open to all employees across job levels, locations and subsidiaries, is to generate new revenue streams and growth opportunities for the Bengaluru-based company, according to an internal mail sent by Infosys to its employees on 26 December, which Mint reviewed.

Apart from trying to boost additional business from clients, the move appears to be a way for the country’s second-largest information technology services company to retain talent by giving employees jaded with monotonous work a chance to explore and work on new technologies.

The company added 2,456 employees for a total of 317,788 at the end of September. The attrition rate rose to 12.9% compared with 12.7% in the preceding June quarter.

“Participating in Incubator is a full-time role. So, the employee will need to move out of his/her current role," the company said in the guidelines for the programme. “The incubator will consider ideas for platforms and service lines. The ideas need to be digital in nature, unique from existing offerings, and should align with Infosys model and business strategy."

 

Employees can pitch ideas in teams of three to the Incubator council, which includes leaders across various domains in the company. The number of people working for an idea can be increased as per the business plan.

Infosys, which ended FY24 with $18.6 billion in revenue, will fund the software, hardware, travel, and marketing and even provide space for the ideas pitched. The company did not disclose the source or amount of funding earmarked for the programme.

“This is a form of employee engagement booster and possibly from Infosys’ standpoint, the ability to participate in the upside if the idea sees greater uptick," said a Mumbai-based analyst with a domestic brokerage.

An email sent to Infosys on Sunday went unanswered.

Dangling a reward

Employees whose ideas are selected will receive the same salaries as before and their job level will remain the same. However, they stand to gain a reward.

“If your idea is selected for patent filing, you along with co-innovators would be eligible for rewards up to $2,000 ( ₹171,420) for each successful invention," the company said.

All ideas that go through will belong to Infosys and the inventors will be acknowledged as per the company’s intellectual property (IP) policies. The company sent a six-page declaration to employees, declaring that all IPs, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, and copyrights as part of the idea, including those that would emerge in the future, would belong to Infosys.

If the approved ideas do not scale up, the employees can return to their units. If an employee whose idea is part of the programme wants to leave the venture or the company, Infosys will plan for a transition and the employee must follow the existing exit protocols.

While this business incubation programme is a first for the company, it has not shied away from tapping employees for business ideas in the past.

In July 2014, then Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka launched ‘murmurations,’ a crowdsourcing initiative aimed at encouraging employees to come up with ideas that could be implemented by clients. Employees across ranks and domains were told to send ideas even if they did not pertain to their projects.

To ensure this initiative did not just remain in the inbox, Sikka implemented 10 of the 2,700 ideas he received. Unlike the 2014 rollout, this approach aims to solidify the initiative beyond just an idea to clients.

The new initiative by Infosys under Salil Parekh is arguably the first by an IT services company. Parekh, who took over as Infosys chief executive in January 2018, has helped the company regain its mojo but growth has been subdued over the past one or two quarters.

Revenue growth

Infosys has five platforms or software products that it offers to clients, according to its website. Ideas that pass through the stages of research and implementation and make it as a scaled business offering will be added to the platforms list, the company added.

While Infosys does not break up the revenue from its business platforms, the move to introduce new business offerings is in line with the company’s growth plan. Its main revenue segments are financial services, retail, communication, energy, utilities, resources & services, manufacturing, hi-tech and life sciences.

 

The IT outsourcing company reported the quickest revenue growth of India’s top five IT service-providers last quarter. It reported a 3.8% sequential rise in revenue to $4.89 billion in the three months ended September. Infosys now expects to end FY25 with a 3.75-4.5% annual revenue growth, higher than its initial projection of 1-3% growth in constant currency terms.