High-Growth Business Development

Venture Management

 Case Studies  Infosys

Success Story of the Leading Indian IT Company

 

By K. Dinesh, Co-founder, Infosys, India

 

 

Phase I: Getting a Foothold

Working with shackles:

  • Command and control economy

  • Import restrictions

  • Punitive taxes

  • Under-developed capital markets

  • Foreign exchange controls

  • Capital shortage for infrastructure investments

  • Poor telecom infrastructure

Strategy:

  • Onsite focus

  • Few large customers

  • Indirect sales

Phase II: The Run Up

Liberalization of the economy:

  • Abolishing of licenses

  • Rationalization of taxes

  • Export incentives

  • Rationalization of tariffs

  • Abolishing of wealth tax on productive assets

  • Foreign exchange reforms

  • Free pricing of issues and entry of FIIs

  • Employee stock option plans >>>

Strategy:

The Tree of Business Success

2 Basic Business Growth Strategies

  • Global benchmarking

  • Global delivery model

    • Do work where it makes economic sense and reduce the total cost of ownership

    • Use two working shifts in the same calendar day to reduce time to market

    • Ramp up resources in multiple continents

  • Employee retention

  • Investment in sales and marketing

  • Becoming a company of choice for investors, customers and employees

Phase III: The Big Leap

3 Strategies of Market Leaders

Current environment:

  • Market trends

    • Globalization, deregulation & consolidation are changing business fundamentally

    • Financial markets have been transformed

    • Increasing competition from low cost economies

  • Technology trends

    • High speed ADSL and optical fiber are providing higher bandwidth

    • Wireless access and new technologies like WAP and Bluetooth are becoming popular

    • Web appliances are expected to proliferate and non-PC devices will outnumber connected PCs in the future

  • Outsourcing is increasing because of:

Infosys Today – a Role Model

International Recognition

  • Ranked No.1 in Business Today's "India's Best Employers" survey

  • Best Managed Company in India - Asiamoney poll

  • Far Eastern Economic Review rated Infosys as India's No.1 company

  • Rated highest among companies in India expected to increase their future stature by ORG-MARG

 

References:

1. "How To Build a Great Company", Interview with Narayna Murthy, World Economic Forum