Rohan Murty doing a brilliant job at Infosys, says Narayana Murthy
Infosys reported its third quarter earnings on Friday, but the highlight of the day was executive chairman and founder NR Narayana Murthy's press conference. (Watch)
Mr Murthy, who returned from retirement in June 2013 to take charge of the struggling company, spoke to the media on a range of issues. (Also read: Who is Narayana Murthy?)
Here are the key highlights:
On son Rohan Murty's work at Infosys: Rohan is doing a brilliant job at Infosys, grateful to him.
On Rohan being a contender for Infosys CEO: This is all speculation. What he wants to do is a decision that should be left to him. What designation Rohan will hold in Infosys is not for me to decide. He is on leave from Harvard. He would like to go back to Harvard at an opportune time but who knows he may change his mind.
On retirement plans: I have been invited by the board of directors to add value to value to the company for a term of five years. Therefore, I have to spend every minute of mine to ensure that the company discharges its obligations to every stakeholder.
At a point when the board of directors is satisfied that the management team, of whom I happen to be one cog in the wheel, has done it to their satisfactions, they will allow me to go back to the retired life which is clearly something I deserve. Therefore I don't I want to say when and how. It is entirely left to the board of directors. It is left to how well we satisfy the aspirations of our stakeholders.
On senior-level exits at Infosys: Sad to see some excellent people leave the company. Wish each ex-Infosysian success in their future. Some have found passion different from the company, some had ambitions that the company could not match. Some, perhaps, preferred lower challenges. (Read)
On changes to Infosys top management: After the appointment of the two presidents (BG Srinivas and UB Pravin Rao), the executive council became superfluous. Elimination of executive council will not create any perturbation in future growth. Changes at top management will make Infosys more robust, will make sales and delivery more effective and lead to cost optimization.
On existing leadership at Infosys: The beauty of Infosys is that it has a large cadre of leadership. The two presidents are just 50 year olds. Other people on the dias are all in their 40s, some are sub-40s.
On wage hike: Our desire is to go back to the April cycle of wage hikes. At this stage it is a work in progress. (Read the full story here)
On Infosys 3.0: There is nothing wrong with the new strategy. We want to get a larger share of revenue from transformational projects that provide better margins. We have said that the linear relation between revenues and number of people is not in best interest of the company. We are working toward products, platforms and solutions, which will help create non-linear relationship between revenues and number of people.
On Infosys succession: All of us would like one of the two presidents to become CEO after Shibulal, but this is not for us to decide. It is for the nominations committee to decide if they want an outsider.
On Infosys stock performance: Full credit to current management for the rebound in Infosys shares. (Track stock)
On growth: Desire to get back to days when Infosys had industry leading growth rate and margins. When we will be there depends on how well we execute the various initiatives we have started. (Read the full story)
