Infosys has dismissed co-founder N R Narayana Murthy's plea to make the Panaya probe report public as doing so would amount to a violation of client confidentiality agreements between Panaya's investors and partners. If you did miss the forest for the trees, Vishal Sikka's missive to the employees could help put two and two together: "Recently, when I turned 50, another anniversary, a great teacher of my life gave me a rare book of reflections by Hermann Hesse. In it, I found this one gem: 'Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go'." The message is subtle, yet clear; subliminal, yet hit the nail on the head.
Weeks ago, Murthy had demanded a complete public disclosure of the investigations carried out by the American law firm Gibson Dunn, and investigation and global risk consultancy firm Control Risks. Earlier this year, the private eyes wound up the probe stating they could not find any evidence to support the impropriety allegations made against Infosys over the acquisition of Israeli software company Panaya.
In the same email, Sikka also said, "The world around us is experiencing a profound and disruptive change largely driven by technology and Infosys as an IT services leader has the opportunity to help businesses transform fundamentally using automation and innovation." He added, "We need to massively embrace automation in the commoditising parts of our core business, and bring grassroots innovation into everything we work on."
The acquisition and automation drive of the new guard has faced constant resistance from the Infosys founders.
In the past, Murthy had openly expressed his concerns over the company's governance practices, ethical standards, and pay structure of the CEO and other top rung employees.
Management transparency, corporate governance, and fair work environment are the core principles around which the company functioned and flourished.
Murthy believes in practising capitalism but with fairness, justice, and liberalism. He opposed the remuneration structure of the senior management at Infosys. Vishal Sikka's take-home pay in 2016 didn't go down well with Murthy, who, as the sources say, wanted to keep the highest and lowest salary ratio at 20:25.
However, Sikka in a bid to retain the talent at the top level has reneged on the approach. He is looking to build the creative confidence of Infosys by bringing in more innovation and automation.
In the era of automation and artificial intelligence, he believes holding on to the conventional concepts is not in the best interest of the company. Now is the time for Sikka, who was handpicked by Murthy, to prove his prowess as an innovator and set the record straight.
