Sikka to focus on innovation at Infy sans 'grand changes'

Says Murthy's initiatives over last one year showing results; to augment company's strategy with innovation

Even as Infosys' Chief Executive Officer (CEO)-designate Vishal Sikka does not plan to bring about any "grand changes" to the company's strategy, he will look at augmenting the business of the company with new initiatives.

In his maiden address to investors at Infosys' Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) in Bangalore on Wednesday, Sikka said the initiatives taken by co-founder and Non-Executive Chairman N R Narayana Murthy over the last one year have started showing results and he would only look to bring more innovation to enhance the company's business.

Sikka will take charge as Infosys' CEO later this week.

"It is still too early to comment about the strategy, but I will say that the initiatives taken by Murthy over the last year or so have started to show results and we are confident that the team that we have in place and the recent momentum is in our favour," Sikka said.

"So I see no reason to make any grand changes to the direction that we have been going in, but I do see a great reason to augment it with new kind of innovation. We do look forward to bringing some great innovation into our company going forward," he added.

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An industry veteran, Sikka is widely considered to be an exceptional technocrat. To his merit, Sikka, who joined SAP's executive board in 2010, led the development of the HANA platform, which is the German company's flagship product. He was a key executive in bringing the product to market.

With such credentials, several observers have been of the view that Sikka might apply his experience at the software products major to spearhead India's second largest information technology (IT) services company, Infosys, back to industry-leading growth levels.

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While several observers had also expected a shift in Infosys' culture following the appointment of the first external-CEO, Sikka said that he has, over the last two months, observed the "deep-rooted culture and deep-rooted set of values" that the Bangalore-based company is built on and would work to retain and grow the same.

"The company is built on a very deep-rooted culture and a deep-rooted set of values. So my first order of business is to continue that and grow that - the culture, the processes, the plan that have been put into place by the founders," he said on the sidelines of the EGM.

"There comes a time in the life of a company when the instincts and intuition and knowledge of the founders are replaced by processes, structures and principles. (Chief Operating Officer) U B Pravin Rao and my endeavor would be to do that."

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On the innovation front, Sikka said that while Infosys will continue to be focused on its existing business, it will look to bring in new initiatives to make itself more effective. He added that Infosys has a great opportunity to participate in the evolution of technology that is taking place currently and he would look to move the company in that direction.

"The world around us is becoming fundamentally reshaped by software, and as a distinguished provider of software, we have a great opportunity to help this transformation of the world that is happening," he said.

"I see great opportunity in bringing innovative new kind of software to our clients through the existing frameworks that we have. In addition to continuing with our existing businesses and continuing to grow them, my focus would be even to become more effective in those businesses."

To address the newer challenges arising amid this changing technology landscape, Sikka said, Infosys would look at integrating the existing solutions it has while at the same time building newer solutions along with clients.