Narayana Murthy’s priority will be to stabilize Infosys in transition

BANGALORE: In a dramatic development, N R Narayana Murthy, 67, on Saturday returned to the executive leadership of the $7.4-billion Infosys, two years after retiring from the iconic company he had founded. Murthy was forced to rejoin because Infosys, once the bellwether of the I-T industry, is currently struggling, with its revenues falling behind its peers such as TCS, Cognizant and HCL in the past five years.


ET Special: Narayana Murthy's comeback at Infosys

While Cognizant's revenue was nearly $2 billion less than Infosys in 2008-09, it has now surpassed it. TCS's revenues were $1.5 billion more than Infosys five years ago; today, the gap has widened to $4 billion. The slide is also said to have raised questions in a section of Infosys's senior management about CEO S D Shibulal's leadership and the Infy 3.0 strategy he unveiled with its focus on consulting and higher-end work.

Murthy is expected to re-work the strategy and look into aspects that need to be strengthened as well as abandoned. "Finally you need results," said Murthy, who owns a 5% stake in the company he had co-founded in 1981 with Rs 10,000 borrowed from his wife. He told reporters that he did not in his "wildest dream" imagine that he would be back in Infosys in an executive capacity when he walked out on August 20, 2011.

Murthy refused to spell out what exactly ails Infosys, merely saying, "I've been here only a few hours." But it's learnt that his priority will be to stabilize Infosys through the transition to a new management team, mentor it during his five-year tenure, and then exit.

Closely watched along with Murthy's return will be the role played by his son, the Harvard-trained computer scientist Rohan Murthy. Rohan and another person from Catamaran — the family investment office — will form the core of Murthy's office. Murthy sought to quell suggestions that Rohan, married to TVS heiress Lakshmi Venu, was being groomed to take on higher positions in the company.

"The quickest and best way of my being effective is by utilizing the competencies of a strong team of people that I have been interacting with in the last 2-3 years. One of them happens to be my son Rohan. The only role that Rohan has is to make me more effective," he said.

In a regulatory filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange ( BSE), the company said outgoing chairman KV Kamath would be an independent director from Saturday.

Welcoming the move, Kamath said Murthy's entrepreneurial and leadership record and the long experience he has had as a technology pioneer makes him eminently qualified to lead the company and provide strategic direction at this point in time.