Running the “Flat company” - Nilekani

Nandan Nilekani could well be India’s offshore outsourcing ambassador to the world. This 51 year old well-spoken strategist with a leadership style that comes almost naturally, took over as President of Infosys Technologies after the company chairman and founder NR Narayana Murthy retired in August this year. In fact, Nilekani was recently awarded the Dataquest IT person of the year award in recognition of “the smooth transition at the helm at a time of rapid scaling up and intense competitive pressure; and of the continuing, and considerable contribution to 'brand India'. ”


The main agenda on Nilekani’s plate is to manage the challenge of achieving scale and efficiency in global IT services without compromising on values, client satisfaction and culture-these are all complex challenges. “The other part is how do we change as an organization and go up the value chain and be seen as more consultative and trusted partner to customers. That is not about business as usual. That is about change.”

Planning ahead

To meet this challenge, the company has put in place a structured approach to plan for the future. Nilekani along with its think-tank of senior managers have formulated three horizons of planning-at the high end of which is the five-year scenario planning; an intermediate three year planning and the quarterly and yearly planning at the operational level.

The five-year scenario planning helps in checking if the assumptions made by the company a few years back still hold good or whether Infosys needs to rejig itself to suit a new set of realities. “Companies run on a set of set of explicit, tacit assumptions about the market, customers, about the future, world and technology. What happens to them often is that some of those assumptions are changing. There is something happening either in the external environment and internally where theory of business is changing,” explains Nilekani.

In the three-year strategic planning exercise, business units and support units pool in ideas on what they will do different about the corporate strategy. “These are the nuts and bolts of running our firm. These are the instruments we use to ensure that our operational excellence is maintained as well as our strategic direction is not out of date.”

This kind of assumption setting ensures that the company is quick to capitalize on any opportunity that comes its way and is ready to hit the ground running at the right time. This strategy has paid off for Infosys which now has 40 per cent of its revenues coming in from services that did not exist five years ago.

The company revised its annual revenue guidance thanks to a whopping 52 per cent growth in net profit from the previous quarter, and is confident of closing revenues of over $3 billion this year.

The journey

Nilekani spent many of his early years in Dharwad and entered the portals of IIT Mumbai in 1973 to do his BTech in Electrical Engineering. The IIT years were a revelation to Nilekani and he credits this time as the period when his latent personality and skills started to bloom.

“I was from a small town and not at all sophisticated. I was surrounded by all these boys from Cathedral and other up-market schools from Bombay. So learning how to survive and flourish in that environment gave me self confidence.”

He reckons that having multi-dimensional and having a well-rounded life is a differentiator for success.

Besides studies, Nilekani was an avid quizzer and also organized IIT Mumbai’s collegiate cultural fest Mood Indigo. “Doing these helps you learn about the real world, how to get things done, learn to deal with people with diverse backgrounds, conflict resolution and so forth,” feels Nilekani.

Soon after his graduation in 1978, he joined Patni Computer Systems where NR Narayana Murthy was then the head of software. Three years later, in 1981 seven employees from the company including Nandan and Murthy started Infosys.

For a person who joined Infosys when he was 25, Nilekani has come a long way both in terms of experience and stature. He recalls a time in the 80s when the Infosys team was tempted to throw in the towel and close shop since their business was not clicking. “But we crossed that bridge. We wanted to make it work. Building a great institution is an addictive thing,” he says.

A familiar refrain you will hear from people close to Nilekani is about what a natural leader he is. His penchant for driving strategy and rallying people around comes with an almost effortless ease.

He can hold his own with any professor or CEO on technology and strategy. Whether it is about holding forth on outsourcing with Thomas Friedman or dealing with rookies in the company, Nilekani has the knack to get people on to his side. His innate ability to rally around people and drive strategy was demonstrated early this year at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Nandan conceptualized and took the lead in pushing the “India everywhere” campaign that caught the world’s attention and brought to focus India’s strengths and enormous opportunities. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Infosys’ COO, raves about Nandan’s ability to bring together diverse sets of people and getting them to work as a team. “He stood out as a leader from day one at Infosys.”

Many accolades have come his way including The Padma Bhushan and being named of hundred most influential people in the world by the Time magazine.

On his personal aspirations, Nilekani admits that he got more than he has deserved. “I’m unusually lucky and it is not necessarily because of my competence. I know enough guys in IIT who were much smarter than me. Luck is a huge part –the fact that I met Murthy. It is all serendipity, and also timing,” he says modestly.

However he has two goals-one for Infosys to take full advantage of business opportunity and achieve the full potential of everyone’s aspirations, and also make a contribution to the country by helping India do better in the globalized economy.

Nilekani also wishes he could “relax a little more.” But with Infy on a roll, that would be an aspiration that would have to wait a while.

Priya Padmanabhan
©CyberMedia News

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