Infosys will soon start a fast track career programme for high performers to boost morale of the company and has come up with different processes to help software engineers to improve productivity.
In the 33rd AGM, the outgoing executive chairman N R Narayana Murthy addressing the 500 odd shareholders said that the company will start a technical stream programme for software architects, designers, performance engineers and crack programmers. This programme is for engineers who do not want to take on managerial roles, he added.
The company has hired lots of engineers at the entry level people in sales to have more foot soldiers who can assist in bagging outsourcing deals. Further Murthy said that the company has improved training programs and assessment process for employees to improve software delivery.
Further, Infosys has made some changes to counter the challenges posed by commoditisation of software services, which is a growing challenge amongst other spftware exporters too. “We repurposed our Infosys Labs to focus on how we can use technology to automate better and create a differentiation,” said Murthy.
The company which had not given salary increases in the fiscal year 2012 and 2013 reversed the trend in fiscal 2014 by giving hikes twice. For the first time since 2002, the letter of compensation increase and promotion was sent to every employee before March 31 this year, noted Murthy.
Sending a signal of positivity and coolness to all the stakeholders, Murthy emphasised on the fact that introducing automation in software development would yield strong results. The company has internally looked at ways in which a software engineer can see the level of productivity every day. “This would help in reducing wastage of efforts improve the way they work and help project managers to allocate employee resources better, he said.
He added that this goal was achieved by using big data wherein the company collected data at various points of gthe software development cycle and by using this data will measure the performance of its engineers.
In his last AGM at the Christ University, the iconic founder of India’s second largest software exporter bid farewell to shareholders, assuring them that he has laid the foundation for growth in the coming years and in some ways feels that the company has been resurrected.
He started off by saying that this being his last AGM, he would be making a slightly long speech. The speech which lasted for about an hour was filled with acknowledgement to everybody- from employees to the Indian government. Reasserting the fact that since he was recalled a year back to put the company back on a strong growth path, he said that the Board wanted him to look at two things. “First, build a strong foundation for growth and secondly to assist them in finding an able CEO to take the company forward,” he said.
Murthy maintained an assertive tone throughout the duration of the speech and expanded on both these tasks. In the last year’s AGM, Murthy had said that on the back of some tough decisions, it would take 36 months for the company to yield results. Acknowledging the fact that somehow the company had diluted its focus on meritocracy and accountability during the last decade, he set out to identify ‘hidden jewels’ within the company and give them the opportunity to lead its resurrection and at the same time identifying the non performers and moving them to tasks that they were best suited for. “Every one of these decisions were discussed and approved by the senior management,” he asserted.
Sounding a bit downbeat about the fact that the operating margin of the company has come from 30 per cent in 2011 to 23.5 per cent in September 2013, he said that it was extremely important to cut wasteful and avoid expenditure. We reduced expenditure on non-revenue earning people abroad, strove hard to move the role ratios to the pyramid structure that existed till 2002, made changes to certain percentage of software delivery people earning high salaries but peforming lower level jobs and were being billed at lower rates, he said. After these things were done, it resulted in improvement in operating margins of 200 basis points and he thanked M.D. Ranganath from the executive chairman office and CFO Rajiv Bansal.
Industry watchers saw an interesting message emanating from the address. According to Sanchit Gogia, IT Analyst with Grehound Research, it is a strong message from Infosys on it's decision to be a platform firm and slowly move away from being a traditional system integrator. This was reinforced in today's message from Murthy when he repeatedly mentioned Infosys being a software firm and never mentioned IT services, he added.
Murthy’s speech was followed by executive vice chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan, who said that it was not goodbye and he as a shareholder would come to the AGM and cheer the performance of the new management. CEO and MD, Shibulal spoke about the fact that he spent his entire adult life with Infosys, gained friends and families.
Investors on their part showered praises on Murthy calling him ‘Brahma’ of the IT industry and some even suggested that they were emotionally vested in him and asked whether they should sell their investments despite the investing analogy of not being emotionally involved with their stocks.
A few days back Murthy told reporters that he wishes to spend more time with his two granddaughters and go back to learning about machine 2 machine systems. As he does so, he still will have one eye on what he has always referred to as his middle child.