Taking India Inc and much of the rest of the world by surprise, Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka on Friday tendered his resignation from the company citing “distractions and noise”. Soon after the resignation, UB Pravin Rao was appointed as the interim MD & CEO of the company. Sikka resignation comes after barely three years after he was appointed as the CEO. Sikka, however, has been appointed as Executive Vice Chairman of the IT consulting major. Infosys has accepted the resignation of Sikka with immediate effect and he has been appointed as Executive Vice-Chairman, the company said. Rao as the CEO will have overall strategic and operational responsibility for the entire portfolio of the company’s offerings, Infosys said. He currently oversees the key functions of global sales, global delivery and business enabling functions.
However, despite all the chaos created after Sikka’s resignation, one aspect numbers clearly depict is a spurt in revenue. At the time of Sikka’s appointment, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy had said that Vishal Sikka means lots of money, a claim that was probably proved correct in last three years. In Sikka’s own words, the company did achieve some milestones in terms of revenues. Sikka, in his letter, said that company revenues have grown from $2.13B in Q1FY15 to $2.65B Q1 2017.
He adds that company’s growth has been achieved “while keeping a strong focus on margins”, making it able to achieve 24.1% operating margin in April-June,2017 quarter. “We have grown our revenues, from $2.13B in Q1FY15 to $2.65B this past Q1. We did so while keeping a strong focus on margins, closing this past quarter at 24.1% operating margin, beating some competitors for the first time in many years, and improving against most in our industry,” Sikka says.
“Perhaps, more importantly, our revenue per employee has grown for six quarters in a row. Our attrition has fallen, from 23.4% in Q1FY15 to 16.9% this past Q1, and high performer attrition is hovering at or below the single-digit threshold for a while now,” he adds. Sikka revealed that under him, the number of $100M+ clients grew from 12 to 19, and the deal win was increased from ~$1.9B in FY15 to ~$3.5B. “We’ve done all this while improving our overall utilization, to a 10-yr high this past quarter, and an all time high including trainees, while improving our cash reserves, rewarding employees with a new equity plan, and returning cash to our stakeholders,” Sikka said in his letter.
