Even though former CEO and MD Vishal Sikka's longevity at Infosys had been questioned quite a few times in the past, it is now being said that he might have stayed on if the Bengaluru-based firm had slammed co-founder Narayana Murthy's interference in the day to day business a tad earlier. He is said to have discussed the issue with Infosys co-chairman Ravi Venkatesan earlier as well.
"Sikka and cochairman Ravi Venkatesan met in June for a long discussion where Ravi told Sikka that he would resolve the situation but that didn't happen," a source close to Sikka told the Economic Times. "He had to take this extreme step (resignation) for the board to come out explicitly in support."
A former independent director also told the daily that Infosys lost Sikka as the board took too much time to take charge of the situation.
When asked if he saw Sikka continuing with the firm and delivering results or leaving, Venkatesan had earlier told the Press Trust of India: "Well I very much hope that it is the former (that Sikka will turn things around), not the latter (that he will turn his back on Infosys due to losing high-profile talents)."
While Sikka's resignation may not have come as a shock to many, considering most of his top-level management has quit the firm in the last few weeks, Sikka's exit may not go down well with the firm's clients.
His equation with numerous executives worldwide had worked wonders for Infosys, but questions are being raised on whether these clients would stick with the firm, now that Sikka is not at the helm. The former CEO is known to have dealt with high-profile clients himself, which won't be the case for long now.
"Vishal is there until March, so that's good. But I think this is what Infosys is going to have to address —how are clients going to work with the team once Vishal has left because a lot of these were personal sales. This is something they will have to work at," R Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder at Constellation Research, told ET.
Meanwhile, many believe that the clients would now prefer to look at other opportunities, which might work in favour of rival IT giants. "Clients under macro/business uncertainty would prefer more business partners that provide continuity of thought process. We believe this event may benefit TCS and Cognizant in the short term," Rahul Jain, analyst with Emkay Securities, explained.
Experts believe that Sikka's exit also means that Infosys will lose quite some focus from the US as the executives in California will either leave on their own or will be let go sooner or later. The firm has already lost a few California-based executives in the form of Ritika Suri, Anirban Dey and Yusuf Bashir among others.
