Amid disquiet and panic in the $150-billion Indian information technology (IT) sector, the man in charge at industry bellwether Infosys has sounded a strong note of optimism and change.
“We can be the next generation services company, as differentiated and iconic as we once were, a company that admires its past and builds on it, or we can be a somewhat improved, but dying, previous generation company that is mired in the past,” Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka has written in the company’s 2017 annual report.
His words are an affirmation of his efforts to transform Infosys by focusing on design thinking, innovation, and re-skilling of employees at a time when the industry is battling job losses and visa challenges.
Sikka, who took over as Infosys CEO in August 2014, also emphasised on the need to deal with tough choices. “It is within us to embrace the tough choices and to move headlong, unabashedly, into creating great new features. Our work in these early years of our transformation leading us along this path. It will continue to be a challenging journey, but it is one worth fighting for,” Sikka said.
The former SAP executive has been a strong votary of increasing automation in the IT industry, a vital transformation that he has spoken about earlier. In January this year, Sikka had said that companies “will be made obsolete by the tidal wave of automation and technology-fuelled transformation that is almost upon us.”
For all the powerful words, Infosys’ CEO is still fighting to reach his target of more than doubling the company’s revenues to $20 billion by 2021. Can Sikka walk the talk?