Infosys changes strategy, to train workers in ‘design thinking’

Infosys aims to train 40 per cent of its workforce in ‘Design Thinking’ by this financial year-end as it seeks to overhaul the profile of its workforce in a bid to get growth back.

These moves are in line with CEO Vishal Sikka’s firm belief that ‘Design Thinking’ should be at the core of the company's business philosophy.

Design thinking is defined as a formal method for practical, creative resolution of problems and creation of solutions, with the intent of getting improved future results, according to Stanford University.

This is a unique initiative in the Indian IT outsourcing sector, which is coming under increasing pressure from outsourcing clients as they see most service providers offering similar capabilities.

“Our culture was different; the way we approached projects was different but we are looking to change all that,” says HR Binod, Executive Vice-President, Global Head, Talent and Technology Operations.

In line with this, Infosys aims to train 70,000 employees in this methodology by the end of 2016.

“Already 31,000 people have been covered,” added Binod. All the top management, including CFO Rajiv Bansal, COO UB Pravin Rao and other executives have undergone a short training programme on ‘Design Thinking’, company officials said. This concept has been taken to 4-5 accounts, said Binod.

Subsequently, in the last couple of months, the top 250 business leaders in two batches of 125 each have finished training.

This workshop has now gone beyond top and mid-level managers to entry-level trainees at the Mysuru campus. Clients have also been a part of some workshops and Sikka, in a recent analyst call, cited how the CEO of a Germany-based utility company visited the Palo Alto campus to discuss how business challenges could be solved using design thinking principles.

Industry watchers seem to have bought into Sikka’s strategy. “They are trying to resolve some past issues, get discipline, operational excellence and efficient client mining through this,” says Shashi Bhusan, analyst at Prabhudas Lilladher.

However, some in the industry are not convinced about how this can be extended to an organisation of 1.76 lakh employees.

Peter Schumacher, CEO, Value Leadership Group, said that culturally, Infosys has such a deeply analytical mindset that there are questions over whether the company can successfully implement this strategy.