Sikka expected to tame attrition at Infosys

Infosys has tried to bring stability to the troubled company, which was struggling to maintain its growth momentum in the changing dynamics of technology industry

It is quite a coincidence that Vishal Sikka took up the top job at Infosys. Sikka, a former executive board member at German software maker SAP AG, is said to have left the company over a power struggle with the management. Infosys, which had been battling succession planning issues for a couple of years now, has also seen high-voltage power struggles with several senior executives quitting the firm within a matter of months. Sikka’s appointment is expected to end such mass exodus in future.

A Business Insider report dated May 6 said: “Everyone we've talked to seems genuinely shocked by the departure of one of SAP's brightest stars, Vishal Sikka, the company's executive board member for products and innovation. Why did he leave? Two things were going on, sources tell us: He was hoping for a big promotion akin to a co-CEO role and that didn't happen. SAP is a German company and there’s an internal struggle at SAP between the growing power of its American executives, of which Sikka was a prominent member, and its German contingent.”

The fact that Sikka left days before SAP’s major annual customer conference, dubbed as Sapphire, was more shocking. “The conference will be going on without him for the first time in 12 years, and Sikka is fine with that. Sikka sounds like a man at peace with his decision, one he says was his to make. He told me he was not forced out. It was just time to move on,” wrote Ron Miller in TechCrunch in a June 1 article.

Sikka, however, put it this way: “It was a different idea of how we saw the future and that’s why I left. I wish them the best. It ended in a way that I left abruptly. That’s how it goes in big companies.”

“He said he offered to stay through Sapphire, but the executive team wanted a clean break,” Miller continued.

The 47-year-old technocrat is considered to be an innovator and visionary in the technology arena. The former chief technology officer of SAP was a core member in developing the HANA product, which is now a $1-billion business for the German enterprise solutions provider.

By appointing the Stanford University Ph.D as the CEO of Infosys – a first in the 33-year history of the company – its co-founder N R Narayana Murthy has tried to bring stability to the troubled company, which was struggling to maintain its growth momentum in the changing dynamics of technology industry.

After Murthy returned from his retirement to bring Infosys back to the growth path, the company saw a mass exodus of executives including several potential CEO candidates such as V Balakrishnan, B G Srinivas, Ashok Vemuri along with scores of top- and middle-level managers. Many of these leaders have joined smaller rivals in senior positions.

With Vishal at the helm, the senior exits in the company as well as overall employee attrition is expected to come down, industry observers say. Along with the appointment of Sikka, Infosys has also promoted 12 senior executives as executive vice-presidents (EVPs) with additional responsibility apart from promoting long-timer U B Pravin as the chief operating officer.

“We believe Infosys has made a bold and a brave choice by selecting Vishal Sikka as the first non-founder to lead the company. Besides, the company has elevated 12 leaders to the EVP position with additional responsibilities, which in our view should help reduce the pace of exits at Infosys which have been unnerving in the recent times,” brokerage firm Emkay said in a report on Thursday.

Phil Fersht of Horses for Sources said in a recent blogpost: “Vishal is a technologist and much admired by technology-driven executives. His recent departure at SAP demonstrated how loved he was by the techno-purists and was seen by many as SAP selling its technology soul to appease the money-men. He was the driving force behind SAP’s HANA and emerging Cloud capabilities and his absence at the recent Sapphire event was even more depressing than Bill McDermott’s keynote speech.”

Just like Infosys lost many of its good men to rivals, SAP’s loss could hopefully be Infosys’ gain.