Infosys board blames it all on founders

The Infosys board has taken a hard stand on what it termed as repeated insinuations and malicious campaign against the company by its founders and has withdrawn the invitation to co-founder NR Narayana Murthy for a representation on its board.

Last week, Ravi Venkatesan, the Co-Chairman of the board, said that Infosys was willing to give Murthy a representation on its board. However, Murthy did not respond to Venkatesan’s offer at that time.

In a hurriedly convened investors’ call on Friday, Venkatesan said he was thankful to Sikka for making Infosys “relevant again”. “Vishal did a great deal for making the journey exciting again during the three years he was there. He has planted the seed for the transformation of the company and it will bear fruit soon,” he said.

Sikka who received support from most of the analysts who participated in the call, said he has received complete support and was thankful for the commitment by his team. He said the industry is going through a significant shift and is driven by automation and all pervasive digitisation. “I am really proud of what we have achieved. We deliver things nobody could do to improve the productivity. I am proud of the results we have achieved,” he said.

He said since he took over the top job, the attrition rates have come down while revenues too have increased. “There has been a steadfast focus on margins. Our utilisation has been on a 10-year-high. The number of clients in the $100-million order has gone up from 12 to 19,” he said.

Sikka came down heavily on allegations made against him. “You can deal with certain issues but what has been happening since January or February, the continuous drum beats of these allegations, news stories, Rajiv (Bansal, former CFO) separation, Panaya (deal) and (all this), over and over again...it is absolutely sickening. You wake up in the morning, and it is the same regurgitation of the same nonsense. I was spending way too much time, even that is surface damage. What it does is to make it difficult to carry out the change agenda. We have been trying to provide a working culture. ...and this is a dis-service to the company, it prevents us from creating a value. It creates negativity. I have been thinking about this for sometime. I have had two long meetings with Ravi and R Seshasayee (Chairman) was here too.”

Sikka said the situation had got worse and increasingly malicious and personal. “This is not the end of the company. The company will live longer than all of us. The board told me that I should reconsider my decision and felt that the performance will slow down. It hurts performance. Media is nonsensical. Some of the allegations are being made again and again. It drains so much of energy…”