Infosys CEO and the managing director, Vishal Sikka finally resigns from his posts after being at the top position for more than three years now. His tenure in the company showed a good glimpses of revival of the company for being India’s second largest software company but the situations got messy and difficult for the company due to the slower revenue growth and also a brawl with the founders.
As per the reports, Sikka was the first non-founder CEO of the Bengaluru based company and he took charge in the year 2014 and now he will be succeeded by the chief operating officer Pravin Rao, who will be the MD and CEO for the meantime. After resigning, Sikka has also clearly disclosed his reasons that can be considered completely valid as he said that he was facing continuous distractions and disruptions over the past months not only professionally but personally too.
If we take a look at the statements he gave, we can clearly witness his frustration of doing so much for the company and not getting the desired results in return. He stated in his letter being released on his blog,” After a lot of reflection, I have resigned from my position as your MD & CEO effective today. A succession process has been initiated, with Pravin serving as interim MD & CEO, and I will work closely with the Board and management team over the next few months to ensure a smooth transition. In addition, I have agreed to serve as Executive Vice Chairman on the Board to further ensure continuity until the new management is in place. For days, indeed weeks, this decision has weighed on me. I have wrestled the pros and cons, the issues and the counterbalancing arguments. But now, after much thought, and considering the environment of the last few quarters, I am clear in my decision. It is clear to me that despite our successes over the last three years, and the powerful seeds of innovation that we have sown, I cannot carry out my job as CEO and continue to create value, while also constantly defending against unrelenting, baseless/malicious and increasingly personal attacks.”
He even shared his journey of three years from where he started to help reshape the company around innovation and entrepreneurship, to deliver breakthrough value for clients, and to help elevate our work, our standing, our selves, on the basis of a dual strategy, bringing together dualities of renew and new, automation and innovation, people and software, to show a new path forward in a time of unprecedented disruption within the industry and beyond. That time, around and before June 2014, was a difficult time. He said that there was a sense of apprehension all around and he came here to help enable a great transformation as our core business faced intense pricing pressure, and clients looked increasingly to innovative partners to help shape their digital futures. Now, a bit more than three years later, he feels happy to see the company doing better in every dimension we can think of.
The CEO also gave us a glimpse of the shares of the company where he says that the company has grown it’s revenues, from $2.13B in Q1FY15 to $2.65B this past Q1. They did so while keeping a strong focus on margins, closing this past quarter at 24.1% operating margin, beating some competitors for the first time in many years, and improving against most in our industry. Perhaps more importantly, the revenue per employee has grown for six quarters in a row. Company attrition has fallen, from 23.4% in Q1FY15 to 16.9% this past Q1, and high performer attrition is hovering at or below the single-digit threshold for a while now. They grew their $100M+ clients from 12 when he started, to 19, and increased their large deal wins from ~$1.9B in FY15 to ~$3.5B this past year. They have done all this while improving the overall utilization, to a 10-yr high this past quarter, and an all time high including trainees, while improving cash reserves, rewarding employees with a new equity plan, and returning cash to our stakeholders. And this has been done while improving the company understanding with the clients to the highest ever in the 12 years since they have done their client satisfaction survey, and a jump of 22 points in CxO satisfaction.
He also revealed his client meeting with Nitesh and Radha in the Palo Alto office which is one of the largest companies in the world – and the CIO was excited and proud about seeing automation come to life in their landscape. Her reaction to seeing many of our innovation projects, as well as our workspace itself, was thoroughly rewarding, and a testament to all we have achieved. She requested us to bring our innovative work and processes to everything we do with her team in a similar space, and even that we help them establish a similar presence for their company in the valley! This is a sentiment I’ve often heard from clients who’ve visited our 12,000 sqft space here, that has seen 2200 visits over its ~27 months; clients where we saw much faster than average revenue growth following their visits. So, as I look back on the three years as CEO, what brings me the most joy is the new roads that all of you have traveled, the new frontiers that all of you have enabled.
There are many more insights of the story which you can get on his blog link mentioned below:
Moving on…https://t.co/U3CJrtdz5c
— Vishal Sikka (@vsikka) August 18, 2017
We wish Vishal Sikka all the best for his bright future ahead!!
