Create brands that offer 10% more value than promised to customers: Narayana Murthy

Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy on Friday shared a piece of advice with entrepreneurs seeking to build successful consumer brands saying they must focus on creating products that come embedded with 5-10% more value than promised in their ads.

“Brand is a mark of trust,” the veteran entrepreneur said during the annual conference of Venous Association of India in Mysuru.

Murthy, who built Infosys with a team of six cofounders in the early 1980s, stressed that price is what a buyer pays, while value is what he sees, and that everyone who goes shopping makes a simple computation of value divided by price.


“If you want to increase the price of a product, you have the responsibility to make sure that the buyer experiences a much higher value so that the ratio of value over price is higher,” he said. “The ratio of value over price is the basis for all purchasing decisions.”

Owner's pride

Sharing a personal experience, Murthy said he once met a person who showcased his refrigerator prominently in the drawing room as a mark of ‘owner’s pride’. "People think if they have a certain phone or watch, it gives them a certain stature, prestige among people around them," he explained to convey the consumer’s mind space that marquee brands occupy.

Drawing on from another experience, the Infosys founder said he found the doctors in his Jayanagar area of South Bengaluru the best. "They may not be doing the most advanced procedures available in the world, but they bring a unique value to him: that is empathy."

On leadership, Murthy said Mahatma Gandhi exemplified the best leadership qualities as he walked the talk and practised his precept in his lifetime. The veteran corporate leader suggested to entrepreneurs to look no further than Gandhi for leadership qualities and for transparency in actions.

Information system

Murthy called for hospitals in the government sector to adopt robust information systems to control costs and deliver best value to citizens as they run out of taxpayers’ money.

“Even in government (hospitals) where there is no focus on control of expenditure, as it comes from taxes, it is the responsibility of the society to use that tax money very diligently, very carefully to get best value out of it.”

The Infosys founder called on the healthcare professionals to adopt technology which will in turn help improve productivity of doctors, and keep a tab on expenditure. Information systems are a big boon to healthcare professionals, he added.