Challenges such as slowing growth, supply chain disruptions, soaring inflation, rapidly rising interest rates, and fears of a recession present an opportunity to transition to new ways to gain market share, Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani said on June 25.
Addressing shareholders at the company’s 41st Annual General Meeting, Nilekani said, corporate leaders are having to deal with challenges in a post-pandemic world, and along with the above challenges, there is potential to help them.
The AGM’s agenda — along with approving of financial statements — also included the reappointment of CEO Salil Parekh and the approval of his new compensation. Salil Parekh’s proposed compensation, for his second term till March 2027, is Rs 79.75 crore annually, up 88 percent from FY22. Shareholders approved his salary hike, making him one of the highest-paid executives in the industry.
Nilekani, in his Chairman’s address, stressed on the company’s One Infosys Approach, saying it helped the company deliver its fastest growth in a decade. He cited CEO Salil Parekh as the driver for the same, saying he not only pushed for it but also stressed it as the company’s core differentiation. “It amplified our relevance to their [clients] agenda and gave them more reason to trust us to deliver at a time when their businesses sought every digital advantage they could muster to tide through the trying times.”
“Salil has delivered an industry-leading performance for the company, and it is in the interest of Infosys and its stakeholders to secure the continuity and stability of the current leadership", Nilekani added.
He further said that Infosys has been recognised as the fastest-growing IT services brand and that digital acceleration is opening doors for the company. Digital now constitutes a lion’s share of the company’s revenues, he said. The company’s approach also helped the company scale its workforce and increase hiring 2.2X in just two years, he added.
“The One Infosys approach worked to strengthen cultural connect across our talent base, as we scaled our workforce globally. We increased our hiring by 2.2X in just two years, including the 85,000 college graduates we recruited globally over the past year,” he said. The fresher hires were primarily from India.
CEO Salil Parekh said FY22 was a landmark year for the company, with the company seeing the fastest growth in a decade. Revenue from digital, he said, makes up 59.2 percent of the company’s revenues.
Answering shareholder questions, he allayed fears regarding the impact of recession and said the company has a strong pipeline of work and will not be impacted. “We are well poised to work with clients and see a really strong pipeline and growth. We still have a very strong set of deals we are working on within our large deal program and our growth guidance remains at 13-15 percent,” he said.
Parekh said that the company’s previous strategy worked well for the last four years, and it has launched a new one that will focus on scaling the company’s cloud infrastructure, on next-generation seeding, as well as people care and employment. He added that as part of next-generation seeding, the company wants to focus on new technologies such as metaverse and Web 3.0, ESG targets, focussing on the Europe market, and more.
During FY22, the CEO said that growth across sectors was broad-based, with manufacturing standing at a little over 40 percent.
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