Amid signs of a truce, or so it seems, after a brewing difference between the Infosys board and the company's founders, CEO Vishal Sikka, while addressing investors at the Kotak Conference in Mumbai, said his relationship with NR Narayana Murthy is wonderful.
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While answering a question from one analyst about his relationship with the former Infosys veteran, Sikka said: "We meet frequently. The drama that has unfolded is frankly distracting."
This was the first time the Infosys CEO spoke publicly since the row broke out.
On Monday, Murthy apparently called off his fight with the board and said the software company will deal with the questions about corporate governance that have been raised, Bloomberg reported.
"Let me stop. I have made a point, paying such large sums of money is confusing. Now they have to sort it out," Murthy said in an interview. "I felt that I don't want it to snowball. I don't have the time. Neither should the board and the management be spending time on it."
Murthy and certain other Infosys founders had last month written to the company board expressing concerns about Sikka's compensation and the severance package offered to ex-CEO Rajiv Bansal and former general counsel David Kennedy.
Meanwhile, Sikka, while completely side-stepping the issue at the conference, instead preferred to talk about automation, artificial intelligence and what it means for IT companies.
While quoting a research report, he said India would be the worst impacted on jobs due to automation.
"Instead of 10 people, what if we have three people to work on it. If we don't have the software, then some others will take the advantage...Having software together with education is something that is critical for our business. This, in essence, is the nature of our journey...If you look at the 3.5 million people in our industry, the only thing that I see in the future is automation."
The Infosys CEO stressed that advances in computers' processing speeds would lead to exponential growth in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), which, in turn, would offer plenty of business opportunities.
"We have to eliminate our own work to automation, improve productivity, deploy the improved productivity to innovation," Sikka said, adding, "Technology continues to change and we have to continue to adapt."
At 12:10 pm, shares of Infosys traded 1.35 percent higher at Rs 981 on the BSE.
