IndiaTechOnline Opinion.

 Infosys, arguably India’s most iconic infotech company, if not quite the largest, enters a new era this week, without co-founder-Chairman N R Narayana Murthy at the helm. In a flurry of nostalgia and fond reminiscences, NRN crossed 65 years – and relinquished the post of Chairman over the weekend, handing over to K .V. Kamath, who takes over, along with the new CEO (and another co founder ) S.D. Shibulal.
The company that Murthy and a small team of engineers co-founded in 1981 with $ 250 as capital, has grown to become an Indian IT behemoth with $ 6.35 in annual revenues, 130,000-plus employees and nearly half a million shareholders.
It has set standards for business practices, as well as for the quality of its IT services which have a gone a long way to create what is today Brand India in this business. Its campuses in Bangalore and elsewhere are at least in India, models of their kind for the sort of ambience they offer  to those who work there.
The weekend saw a flurry of adulatory interviews with the outgoing and incoming Chairmen in almost all major newspapers in India.

We join in wishing Narayana Murthy, Infosys and its new leadership well -- and appreciate as all Indians do, their contribution to making this country, a serious contender for leadership in providing the world with information technology driven solutions and services.
But we will not hesitate to draw our readers’ attention when ever we feel Infosys could do better – or differently.

In the past we have expressed regret over the relatively small quantum of genuine innovation that has sprung from Infosys, over its first three decades.

We remain uneasy with the much praised ( by other media) process, that resulted in one of the outside experts in the committee charged with finding a successor to Narayana Murthy, ending up as a candidate himself and eventually as the  person chosen to be Chairman. 

And we are somewhat aghast at the flurry to name entities within Infosys after Murthy: Even when he was still its Chairman, he participated in naming its Mysore training campus as the NR Narayana Murthy Centre of Excellence. Now we hear a second centre in Chandigarh carries  the same name. Apparently this is to be a trend. The Times of India, Aug 21, quotes an Infosys spokes person as saying one building in each Infosys Centre is to bear his name. This is, to say the least, uncharacteristic of Murthy’s modest persona – and we believe an aberration for Infosys.

The Murthy Era at Infosys is at an end. We say to Infosys: Carry on the tradition  of your principal founder; get on with the great job you are doing ; innovate even more; enhance Brand India. But don’t get side tracked into sycophantic gestures that diminish your well earned reputation for highly focussed professional , yet ethical business practices .N R Narayana Murthy should indeed be honoured. But leave it to the rest of us -- and get on with your job.
Aug 22 2011