Murthy credits prodigal son for smart moves by Infosys

Infosys' co-founder and outgoing chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy Saturday credited his prodigal son Rohan Murthy for all the smart initiatives the troubled IT bellwether took in the last 12 months to revive its sagging fortunes.

Rohan, 31, joined the $8.3-billion global software major as executive assistant to his illustrious father, who returned from retirement as executive chairman June 1 2013 for steering the company in troubled times.

"Each and every one of the initiatives taken to lay a strong foundation for the company's future growth has been conceived, implemented and pushed forward by Rohan," Murthy told shareholders at the company's 33rd annual general meeting (AGM) here.

Recalling that many investors, analysts and even sections of the media had questioned him on bringing Rohan into the company through the back door, Murthy said he had asked his son to take a sabbatical from Stanford University where he was pursuing a doctorate in computer science and join him to add value to Infosys.

"I wanted Infosys to think differently and invest in some bold initiatives that would yield results in the medium to long term. When the board requested me to come back, I knew I needed somebody by my side who is intelligent, smart and is new to the industry to the point where he would not accept status quo," Murthy recalled.

As Rohan's continuation with the company on a token compensation of Re.1 per year was co-terminus with Murthy's term, he stepped down with his father Saturday.

"My brief or charge to Rohan was to bring fresh and new perspectives from his world, to think from the left field, to not accept status quo and ultimately focus on how Infosys can use technology to differentiate in the marketplace," Murthy's said in his farewell address.

Some of the major initiatives Murthy took with the help of Rohan were measuring productivity of every employee and using intelligent software.

The father and son duo built an instrumentation to collect data at various points of the software development cycle and then used it (data) to build models to measure productivity of every techie in the company, based at its development centres worldwide.

They also introduced automation software development to reduce effort and substitute it with software systems and machine learning algorithms.

"We also started some strategically critical initiatives, which have the potential to change the DNA of the company in the medium and long-term. I believe each one of these initiatives will change not just Infosys, but also the IT industry as well," Murthy asserted.

Noting that technology would continue to drive the core of the company, Murthy said hence the employees must engage in and celebrate a culture of technology.

"We have started a range of initiatives to reinforce and encourage technical competence and the culture of respecting this competence from creating a separate stream for excellent code writers to revising the career path for excellent technology architects," Murthy added.

Rohan, who lives in the US, married Lakshmi, daughter of TVS Motor Company chairman Venu Srinivasan and Mallika Srinivasan in 2010.