Don't plan to introduce grand changes, says Vishal Sikka

Says Murthy's initiatives through the past year are showing results

Infosys chief executive officer (CEO)-designate Vishal Sikka has said he doesn’t plan to introduce “grand changes” to the company’s strategy, adding he will try to augment the company’s business with new initiatives. Sikka is set to take charge as Infosys CEO later this week.

In his maiden address to investors at the company’s extraordinary general meeting here on Wednesday, Sikka said, “It is too early to comment about the strategy, but I will say the initiatives taken by (Narayana) Murthy over the last year or so have started to show results and we are confident the team we have in place and the recent momentum is in our favour…So, I see no reason to make any grand changes to the direction in which we have been going, but I do see a great reason to augment it with new kind of innovation. We look forward to bringing some great innovation into our company.”

At SAP, Sikka, widely considered an exceptional technocrat, led the development of the HANA platform, the German company’s flagship product. He was a key executive in bringing the product to the market. Many say Sikka might apply his experience at the software products major to spearhead Infosys, India’s second-largest information technology services company, back to sector-leading growth levels.

While several observers had expected a shift in the Infosys culture following the appointment of the company’s first external CEO, Sikka said he had, through the past two months, seen the “deep-rooted culture and deep-rooted set of values” the Bangalore-based company was built on. “So, my first order of business is to continue that and grow that— the culture, the processes, the plan that have been put in place by the founders”, he said on the sidelines of the meeting.

“There comes a time in the life of a company when the instincts, intuition and knowledge of the founders are replaced by processes, structures and principles. (Chief Operating Officer) U B Pravin Rao and my endeavour will be to do that.”

On the innovation front, Sikka said while Infosys would continue to focus on existing business, it would consider new initiatives to make itself more effective.

“The world around us is becoming fundamentally reshaped by software and as a distinguished provider of software, we have a great opportunity to help this transformation of the world,” he said. “I see a great opportunity in bringing innovative, new software to our clients through our existing frameworks. In addition to continuing with our existing businesses and continuing to grow these, my focus will be to become more effective in those businesses.”

He said to address the new challenges in the changing technology landscape, Infosys would consider integrating its existing solutions and, at the same time, building new ones.