We may have to thank a few Bulgarian guards for giving the Indian information technology sector its most celebrated son.
In 1974, while travelling in a train near a border town between Bulgaria and Serbia, NR Narayana Murthy was engaged in a conversation in French with a young woman and the talk drifted to how tough it was to live in the Communist world. Before too long, a few guards came along and pulled them out. Murthy was dragged through the platform into a little cell, where he spent the next 72 hours without food or drink.
Murthy took one of the biggest decisions of his life while being in that dingy room. Having lost all sympathy for Communism, he made up his mind to become an entrepreneur who would create thousands of jobs for the then struggling Indian middle class. He left the shores of being a confused Leftist and joined the ranks of a compassionate capitalist. Murthy is on record stating that this incident sowed in his young mind the seeds of creating an Indian multinational software company.
What transpired later is only too well known, and Infosys today is a $6-billion behemoth employing more than 1.30 lakh people, and most importantly a beacon for corporate governance excellence and international best practices. It has given away stock options worth R50,000 crore to its employees in the last 30 years, turning middle-class office goers into millionaires. The company today occupies more than 28 million sq ft of space across its operations and has over 4.5 lakh investors. And that?s apart from cementing India?s space in the global corporate map. Some achievement that in just three decades.
Saturday saw Murthy?s last AGM address at Infosys, a company he nurtured from 1981 along with other co-founders. But he is leaving without regrets. In an interview with FE in April soon after announcing the appointment of KV Kamath as chairman and Kris Gopalakrishnan as co-chairman, Murthy said the company has been transitioned into hands of similar safety. ?There are few who can match the combined intellectual capability of Kamath and Kris,? he had said. But if one were to ask the new chairman and his co-chair which was the most difficult act to follow, they would only point in one direction. Murthy has been a colossus at Infosys and his shoes may be too big to fill. ?It is a huge honour and privilege,? said Kamath, after taking over the mantle. Kamath and Murthy know each other for more than 30 years, and even today Kamath does not hesitate to buzz Murthy?s office when having to take a big call.
Murthy is very different from some of his IT rivals. He and his family owns only a little over 3% in Infosys, at a time when some other IT chieftains never liked the idea of giving away management control. His venture fund Catamaran, a vehicle he uses to support bright ideas, is one of his pet projects today. He has been divesting his stake in Infosys to raise funds for Catamaran, and there are talks that he may shed some more in the near future.
People like Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO SD Shibulal and others who have worked closely with Murthy for many decades, regard him as a person who offers multiple solutions to one issue. Murthy has exhibited a democratic style of functioning in the board room, and encourages healthy, collaborative discussions.
?He loves people who argues with data,? says Mohandas Pai, the Infosys board member who parted ways on Saturday. But once having taken a decision, Murthy stuck to it and ensured immaculate execution. But it is his ability to take calculated risks under extreme duress that makes him stand apart from other leaders.
Back in 1990, before the liberalisation policies kicked in, there was a $1 million offer on the table for selling Infosys. Nine years of work had not taken Infosys to any great heights. Outsourcing had not still become the buzzword. Many of his co-founders were in favour of the sell-out. As the story goes, his colleagues started talking of their future plans and other difficulties. Murthy waited for his turn and said, ?This is our darkest hour before dawn. If you are all bent upon selling the company, I would buy out all of you, even if I did not have a cent in my pocket.? That was probably the last time an Infosys board room discussed the possibility of taking a backward step.
Twenty one years hence the wheel has come a full circle. Infosys is now in need of a second wind. In an interview with FE in January, Murthy had said that he would like the company to take better advantage of the opportunities in the cloud computing space.
Murthy wants Infosys to transform itself into a truly multi-cultural organisation, whose revenue model depends on non-linearity. Infosys has traditionally loved high-margin play and has always been prepared to let go of deals that did not fall within the specified bandwidth. Cross-town rival Wipro Technologies under new CEO TK Kurien has shed a few managers, streamlined verticals and is now preparing to close the gap with Infosys. TCS, on the other hand, has been widening the gap with Infosys in its typical safe and steady manner.
Surely Kris and Kamath have a big task on hand, and it remains to be seen how the company can drive itself forward in the absence of India’s outsourcing pioneer.
?The best analogy that I can think of, for this separation between Infosys and me, is that of one’s daughter getting married and leaving her parents’ home. Yes, the parents will be there when she needs them and they will be happy that she is starting a new life in an exciting new environment,? Murthy stated in the Infosys annual report released in May. August 21 is his last day in the company.