Infosys was founded in 1981 with an initial capital outlay of only USD250. Today, the

company is one of India's top providers of information technology services. There is a

total of 193,383 employees working in Infosys. 35% of the employee strength

comprises of women. Out of the total number of employees, 79% of them are software

professionals. Infosys had a gross addition of 53,386 more employees in the year

2014-15 out of 1,519,678 applications from prospective employees that they had

received. Infosys and other Indian companies provide high quality software and

consulting services to global companies.

Infosys has around 890 clients from 30 countries all over the world. It has its offices in

many countries like Australia, China, Japan, etc. The major product of Infosys is

Finacle. It is a banking solution catering to almost all of the retail banking solutions

and its working modules for corporate sectors as well. Infosys had been involved in

acquiring some of the other set ups. In the year 2003, the company acquired an

Australia based IT service for USD23 million. Infosys also provides Business Process

Outsourcing (BPO) services and in the year 2009, acquired McCamish System in

Atlanta.

Infosys is the 15th largest IT service provider in the world. It holds 19th position in the

World's Most Innovative Companies in the world as listed by Forbes. The company

also received Oracle Excellence Award. The software giant comes under the top 10

companies of the world for its total amount of shareholder returns. Infosys is the most

admired company of India and is considered as a dream workplace by software

professionals. It is also the most trusted brands of India. Infosys also comes in the top

20 green companies. The youngsters always find career opportunities in Infosys.

Infosys started the Infosys Foundation in the year 1996. The foundation has been

created in order to support the underprivileged areas of a society. The company

started many programs in Karnataka of India. The foundation works lie in the areas

like Healthcare, Culture, Education, and many other major areas of a society. There

are Infosys labs as well and they have been set up all over world as a network of

innovation labs. The labs have collaboration with national and international universities

all across the globe.

Infosys BPM, the business process management subsidiary of Infosys, provides end

to-end transformative services for its clients across the globe. The company's

integrated IT and BPM solutions approach enables it to unlock business value across

industries and service lines, and address business challenges for its clients. Utilising

innovative business excellence frameworks, ongoing productivity improvements,

process reengineering, automation, and cutting-edge technology platforms, Infosys

BPM enables its clients to achieve their cost reduction objectives, improve process

efficiencies, enhance effectiveness, and deliver superior customer experience.

The company has been consistently ranked among the leading BPM companies

globally and has received over 60 awards and recognitions in the last 5 years, from

key industry bodies and associations like the Outsourcing Centre, SSON, and GSA,

among others. Infosys BPM also has very robust people practices, as substantiated

by the various HR-specific awards it has won over the years. The company has

consistently been ranked among the top employers of choice, on the basis of its

industry leading HR best practices. The company's senior leaders contribute widely to

industry forums as BPM strategists.

"A brand-new factoring strategy to plug revenue leakages" This is a typical case study

Infosys engaged with Broadspectrum. Broadspectrum, a global infrastructure

management company entered into a factoring agreement with a leading US financial

institution in Australia. However, it realised that it was paying unreasonably high

interest payments to the financial institution and wanted to trace the reason for the

same. Infosys BPM took the initiative to analyse interest payments to the banker, and

the customer payments pattern to provide insights on cost saving opportunities.

NR Narayana Murthy is the co-founder of Infosys, a giant software company. But

despite heading a huge multinational enterprise, Mr Murthy says there is one thing he

does without fail every night when he returns home: he cleans the lavatory. It is a habit

instilled by his father. "We have a caste system in India where the so-called lowest

class... is a set of people who clean the toilets," he explains. "My father believed that

the caste system is a wrong one and therefore he made all of us clean our toilets...

and that habit has continued, and I want my children to do that. And the best way to

make them do it, is if you did it yourself."

This no-nonsense approach may be one of the factors that explains the success of his

business creating bespoke software for a huge range of clients - including some of the

largest companies in the world. Mr Murthy remembers India's environment in the early

1980s as "extremely business-unfriendly". Slow bureaucracy and long-winded

procedures meant just getting the basic technology required to run a company was a

battle. He recalls waiting a year to get a telephone connection and three years for a

licence to import a computer. "We used to have a joke: half the people in the country

are waiting for a telephone, the other half are waiting for a dial tone."

He launched Infosys in 1981 with six other colleagues on a mere USD250 borrowed

from his wife. This tiny sum only kept the company going for a short time, but Mr Murthy

says there was one simple way to remain profitable from the start: "you spent less than

what you earned, that's all". "We stayed in very inexpensive hotels... we didn't have

any cars, sometimes we took buses, sometimes we walked," he says. "It was tough."

In the late 1970s and early 1980s there was growing demand for customised software.

The founders of Infosys realised that this could provide an opportunity for suppliers

based in India. To this end, Mr Murthy says he had history on his side. From the start

of India's independence, there was a deliberate government policy to encourage the

development of technology. The result was a glut of engineers searching for work.

"By and large we have recruited very smart people," he says. "And smart people, they

learn pretty quickly, they adapt very quickly, and they think of new innovations." For

Mr Murthy, the first customer is the most important. They can make or break a start

up. He recalls that when Infosys first launched, the company worked solely with onecustomer, developing and installing a software package for the client's business in

New York. He believes it was a good way for his unknown company to establish their

reputation. "We were selling on our competencies, on our commitment, on our value

system and because this company knew us...we had no issue at all". "And then of

course we got other customers," he adds.

But despite its success today, Infosys took a long time to develop. Mr Murthy attributes

this to India's earlier economic policies, which he believes were not conducive to

entrepreneurship. It wasn't until economic reforms got underway in the 1990s that

Infosys could accelerate its growth. He says the changes, including some to financial

regulations, had a big effect. "We could travel abroad, we could travel easily, we could

get consultants from outside, we could import - all of that," says Mr Murthy.

Mr Murthy says he is passionate about entrepreneurship. "In some sense, there is a

religious fervour... religious dogma about these things," he elaborates. Indeed, Mr

Murthy says he measures the success of his company not on the figures and revenues

it generates, but on the happiness it creates. He believes that the impact of his

company - indeed of entrepreneurship in general - extends not just to its employees,

but to their families and beyond: "the children of those families have new

opportunities... new hopes, new confidence. And that's what makes me sleep well."

But some critics say the company cannot continue to grow at the same pace for ever,

and that sooner or later it will start to slow down. Mr Murthy rejects such suggestions.

But he also believes there is no room for complacency. The firm will continue to make

progress he says, but "while I would like it to be... eternal... the only way that we can

make it permanent is through innovation, is through hard work, is through smartness,

is through commitment."

From last few years, Infosys started shifting its operations to United States and some

of the other countries in the world. There are around 1,200 employees working in the

U.S office of the company.

India is the home country for Infosys. What has India done to promote this home

grown industry?

Just as China drove down prices worldwide in manufacturing, India is doing the same

in services. But China and India are following two distinct paths to development.

Whereas China developed its economy by throwing open its doors to investment,

India's commitment to free markets was ambiguous and made international

companies wary. So, India underwent organic growth and spawned homegrown firms

in knowledge-based industries, such as Infosys.

Despite its reputation for high taxes and burdensome regulations, India long had some

of the most basic foundations of a market economy, including private enterprise,

democratic government, and Western accounting practices. Its capital markets are

also more efficient and transparent than China's, and its legal system is more

advanced. The fact that China is following a top down approach to development while

India pursues a bottom up approach reflects their opposing political systems. India

appears to be the first developing nation to advance economically by relying on thebrainpower of its people. China, by contrast is relying on its natural resources and inexpensive labour to develop its economy.

Answer following question:

Question 1

Differentiate the approach India adopts compared against China to develop its country. (20 marks)