Infosys on Friday beat street estimates with the July-September quarter net profit rising 7.3 percent sequentially (up 28.6 percent on yearly basis) to Rs 3,096 crore (on consolidated basis) on strong revenue and operational growth. CNBC-TV18 spoke to founder member NR Narayana Murthy to know more about the company and his expectations going ahead.Below is verbatim transcript of the interview:
Q: Congratulations to you as well because a lot of what we have seen delivered in this quarter is on account of the initiatives that you had taken in the strategy that you had put in place but how do you feel today seeing Vishal Sikka deliver his first quarter performance?
A: First of all, let us give Vishal Sikka the credit that is due. Whatever has happened, is first his performance and then anything else. Second, he has brought a sense of positivism, a sense of confidence, therefore, this is Vishal’s day and I am very happy that the Professor CEO as I called him in front of you, has started off extremely well, my congratulations to him.
Q: Let me ask you about your decision not to be Chairman Emeritus, you said that there will be - you want to avoid any conflict of interest hence you told the board that you would not like to take on that position and the board has accepted your decision, why?
A: I am a person who believes in a vision just like Vishal. I always keep trying new models and last in 2011 I chose to be Chairman Emeritus and this time I said, look let me see what it is to be just an average Joe. So I will be an average Joe starting today and I just want to see what that is like, nothing more nothing less.
Q: Speaking of being just a shareholder of Infosys because you along with Kris Gopalakrishnan have written to the market regulator seeking clarity on how you should or your shareholding should be classified because you are classified as a promoter but you are no longer dealing with the company in any executive form or fashion. What do you hope for on that front and what kind of clarity are you looking for?
A: I don’t know. We have just expressed it to the company and the company will do whatever is necessary to accept our request or who knows they may reject our request.
Q: Would you not like to be classified in the promoter category any longer?
A: That is our request. In my opinion, the word promoter is an archaic concept, is an outdated concept. It is predominantly an Indian concept and is not part of the parlance or discussions on modern corporate governance. Therefore, we said, what is this? It doesn’t make sense. So why should we be called promoters when we have no position in the company, we are not part of the board, we are not part of daily operations? As people we have always espoused modern corporate governance so I said let us try this too nothing else.
Q: Let me ask you about Vishal Sikka’s strategy and he says that he wants to position Infosys as a next generation services company and he also wants to focus more and more on innovation, artificial intelligence, automation etc. Do you believe that moving away from this cost arbitrage model that Indian IT services company has been pursuing all this while, do you believe it is a risky strategy, do you believe it is a strategy that will pay off perhaps not in the short-term but at least in the long-term?
A: No, his theme - as better than I do - is all about renewing and the new ideas. This means he will bring powerful ideas of innovation in technology into making the existing services, add much greater value to the customer and at the same time, improve productivity within the company, so that we can compete even more effectively in the market. So I don’t think he said anything that is against doing what we do today better.
Q: But do you believe that on the basis of what you have seen from Vishal Sikka in terms of future strategy that Infosys will be able to get back to industry leading growth rates or at least on par with industry growth rates?
A: No, I am just a shareholder and therefore, it is not for me to pronounce judgements on these things. He has articulated his vision, which is strategic and he is going to do lots of things within now and next two-three years that he had talked about. Therefore, how can I comment on any of those?
As somebody who has great admiration for intelligence, great admiration for high education, for research, I am an unadulterated admirer of Vishal. Therefore, I have tremendous admiration and respect for him and therefore I believe he will succeed.
Q: You are not the sort of person I know who looks at life in terms of regrets and disappointments but were you disappointed with the kind of reactions you got from the issue of Rohan Murthy joining Infosys along with you even though you had clearly articulated that his term was co-terminus with you?
A: No, we should not rewind the clock and get back to the past. I have tremendous respect for you people. You people have your perspective, I have my perspective.
You have a mandate to make sure that people watch your channel or people read newspapers. So you do things that you think in your perspective are right but there may be variant from what the reality is. So let us say that and leave it and let us move forward.
Q: Speaking of moving forward, since you are positioning yourself as the average Joe, what is NR Narayana Murthy going to do with his time?
A: I am on the board of Rhodes Trust, on the board of Ford Foundation in New York, of Oxford, Tokyo University, so there are many things that I am doing, I am travelling, my grandchildren are in London.
Q: Investing in start-ups in a big way through Catamaran Ventures?
A: Yes, certainly.
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