THE POWER PLAYER

Source: (2003, March 17) cover story on N. R. Narayana Murthy). Business World, 22 (42), 28-
33.

Today India, tomorrow the world. Narayana Murthy is remaking himself.

8:45 a.m.: Infosys Technologies campus, Bangalore. N.R. Narayana Murthy has already been in
office for about half an hour. S. Krishna Kumar, principal secretary, infrastructure development,
Karnataka government, arrives. He has a single item on his agenda - how to get a modern
international airport going in Bangalore. A lot of work has already been done. But there's a
problem - the file is stuck at the finance ministry in Delhi. They think the project involves a
subsidy. Murthy tries out various solutions: "We don't mind going through a standing
committee... perhaps we should get our lawyer to type out the draft document..." then he decides
to call finance minister Jaswant Singh at home. Singh can't take Murthy's call because he is
getting ready to leave for North Block. But he calls back soon enough. He listens to Murthy and
promises to sort out the problem the same day.

Thirty minutes in the life of an unlikely power player. This February, Businessworld spent a day
with Murthy, sat in at all his meetings - the proverbial fly on the wall. The idea was to see
Murthy at work. But what emerged were glimpses of Murthy reinventing himself. For 20-odd
years, he has been busy building Infosys Technologies. Today, it is a recognised Indian IT
services company. Sometime last year, he appointed co-founder Nandan Nilekani as CEO of
Infosys and redesignated himself as chief mentor. While this designation broadly describes his
job in Infosys, it is not obvious that Murthy is on another mission these days - to position Infosys
as a globally-recognised IT company in the same league as an IBM, an Accenture or an EDS. It
is a critical mission. Infosys needs to make this next big leap into the global arena because its
global counterparts now want to emulate India's low-cost software delivery model. To sustain its
growth rates, Infosys will have to be seen as an equal - perhaps more than equal - of its MNC
counterparts.

"Once you learn to hold the brush, you see if you can paint on a small canvas. Then you move on
to a bigger canvas," says Murthy. To do that, Infosys needs a brand ambassador who is as good
or better at networking globally than any Fortune 500 CEO.

Slightly built, bespectacled, mostly unassuming, Murthy, the champion of middle class values,
does not exude raw power. But make no mistake, there are few who can move bureaucratic
mountains as well as he can. Those who know him say his métier lies in making the system
deliver what he wants. In India, he manages that smartly. The challenge is to do so globally.
Infosys will then obviously benefit. And indications are Murthy is already slipping into the
routine, bit by bit, through attention to every little D-E-T-A-I-L.

10:00 a.m.: By now, Murthy is on his third meeting of the day. It is an important one. Infosys is
hosting a banking seminar in Thailand. The Thai premier has promised to be there. Murthy is

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meticulously planning the conference. It is an opportunity to see Murthy use his fabled skills.
(Post facto, we also see how effective he is.)

Murthy is with the head of his banking business unit, Girish Vaidya. "When will I be speaking?"
he asks. "After prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra," replies Girish. "If the prime minister leaves
after his speech, we will have the coffee break then. That way I can see him off. Otherwise, we
will have the coffee break after my speech." "Are we taking Kavitha?" (Kavitha works for
Infosys in Bangalore. The company does so many shows that it has an in-house compere.)
Murthy then gets into the details of what Kavitha should wear ("The Thai would be more
comfortable with Western wear"), the menu ("Ideally Italian"). The parting gifts are iPODs.
(Read: no handicraft.) Could his team also make sure it uses the Infosys video with Shinawatra
in it?

(On 3 March, Shinawatra appointed Murthy as his advisor in IT matters in the same Bangkok
conference! How will that help him? Well, he spoke in the conference about using technology in
Thailand's rapidly-modernising banking sector. And it is no coincidence that Infosys' thrust area
is now Finacle, a banking software product.)

11:00 a.m.: It seems to be a day for the Thais. A 10-member Thai delegation is welcomed into
his conference room. It includes the Thai trade representative Prachaub Chaiyasan and advisor to
the prime minister Krirk-Krai Jirapaet, among others. The nitty-gritty man slips into the role of a
statesman with practised ease. The act is a delicate balance between playing diplomat and
playing businessman - building ties and positioning Infosys.

"Thailand has focused policies. It is a good balance between rural and urban development. It is a
good model for India. We have a lot to learn... we have been judged the best managed company
and the best employer out of 100,000 unlisted companies (including MNCs) and 6,500 listed
companies... We are a good example in emerging markets such as ours. If you have good
corporate governance and are ethically run, you can make it... Infosys' turnover is $740 million,
that is 30 billion bahts, and profit is $196 million or 8 billion bahts... a country or a company is
as good as its leader... in my opinion Thai people are the friendliest, we welcome you."
Like Voltaire, the French philosopher he often quotes, Murthy uses a light touch, even for
hardsell. By the end of the meeting, he has managed to get the Infosys Leadership Institute
invited to Thailand to conduct a program there. A.G. Panduranga, Murthy's assistant will handle
the details.

Asia is beginning to perceive Murthy differently. For the deft image-builder, some pieces are
falling into place now. Hear Shiew Man Hon, the co-founder and COO of eWarna.com, a
Malaysian start-up that won an entrepreneurship award at the Multi-media Super Corridor
(MSC) in Malaysia. While accepting the award, Hon said that his partner and he had the
opportunity to present and discuss their technology with the Infosys chairman. Murthy was one
of the mentors under the 'Icons of Industry Mentoring Programme' conducted by the MSC.

Again, the Singapore website has prime minister Goh Chok Tong's speech on national rally day.
And no guesses for who is mentioned prominently. Tong says that when Murthy called on
George Yeo (the trade and industries minister), he advised that Singapore should position itself

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as a major disaster recovery centre for Indian software companies. On the Asian stage, Murthy is
on a roll. One day he advises the Singapore government; on another he tells the Sri Lankan prime
minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, that at the current pace of change it, too, will become like
Singapore soon.

Murthy seems a natural. But he was discovered quite by accident. In 1992, the founding team at
Infosys intensely debated whether it would be beneficial for the company to start looking
outward. Should Murthy spend more time at Nasscom instead of concentrating on Infosys? Soon
the answer became obvious. And the Natural was found.

All this comes at a cost - a gruelling schedule. Look at his diary in March. 3 March: Bangkok; 4
March: Singapore; 5-7 March: Vietnam; 8 March: Bangalore; 10 March: Chile; and so on.
Besides these countries, Murthy has also been to the US, Switzerland, Romania, France and
Germany in the first three months of 2003 alone. Panduranga says that his diary is booked till
October 2003. This year, he has six speaking engagements in India and seven abroad. They
include a convocation speech at the Asian Institute of Management (Manila), the India
Innovation Workshop at Harvard, a CeBit Conference in New York, and the World Economic
Forum's China summit, at which he will be the co-chairman.

12:00 p.m.: Despite all this globetrotting, Murthy has not forgotten one of his old recipes for
success - influencing the opinion-makers, analysts and the press. Murthy is with S. Krishnan, an
analyst with Goldman Sachs, New York. (Krishnan is new - he gets his first lessons from the
master himself.) "What is the challenge for Infosys now?" he asks.

"Our aspirations are to get into IT consulting," answers Murthy. Then he pops a surprise. "Adapt
the global delivery model to consulting. Split tasks onsite and offshore." Can that really be done?
In software, teams work across oceans. And if technology can be used, perhaps a lot of the
consulting interviews, too, can be done remotely.

But that's not Infosys' only challenge, it has others too. It has to break out of the image of a
software factory from India. Today, it is tough for the company to go to the US and pit itself as a
consultant against, say, an Accenture. But in Asia, Infosys can perhaps position itself as a
consultant. If 'Murthy the statesman' can convince Asia that he can talk big-picture strategy to
Asian governments, then, perhaps, it will be easier for Asian companies to accept Infosys as a
consultant. First it was the Indian canvas. Now it is Asia. Next...

Besides that, another challenge is to keep growing and reduce risk of dependence on one
country. Look at MNCs like Microsoft and Intel. They look years ahead and play technology
evangelists to emerging markets. Murthy is trying something like that. Take his three days at
Hanoi, where he attended a conference on 'Opening Markets and Continuing Growth: Vietnam
and the Asian Economy'. Also schmoozing at the conference were the prime minister of
Vietnam, ministers from Japan, the European Union, Indonesia and Lao PD. The editor of The
Asian Wall Street Journal was there too. So were country heads of companies like General
Motors and LG Electronics.

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Murthy wants CEOs across the world to be familiar with the Infosys name. For that to happen,
he will have to do some aggressive networking and he is not shy about it. He is on the advisory
board of Lafarge. This February, when Murthy went to Paris, his friend, the Lafarge chief
executive, invited him home for dinner. The shrewd Murthy asked for a favour. Could his friend
also invite other French CEOs, say 13 or 14 of them? His friend obliged. (To reach businessmen
in neighbouring Germany, he did not have to plot. The Confederation of Indian Industry invited
him to lead a business delegation to that country.)

Murthy has made other master moves as well. Take the Wharton-Infosys award for companies
that use technology to transform business. The first award was announced in 2002 and went to
Green Point Mortgage, an American company. It is easy to imagine what an award like this can
do for Infosys' image. Moreover, technology strategies of large companies will also find their
way to Infosys. That is a kicker as the company will gain an inside track on the technology
spends of companies. "I actually wanted to do it with Wharton and BusinessWeek. We could
have got some publicity too. But BusinessWeek did not want to go with any one company,"
chuckles Murthy. He is obviously pleased with his own piece of work.

12:30 p.m.: Even while the overall image of Infosys is being crafted, Murthy has to convince the
world analyst community that the Indian software industry has a sustainable business model.
Krishnan's induction continues. Murthy needs to convince Krishnan and others like him that the
industry here can keep its margins and not let them drop to the level of their global counterparts.

The need for Infosys as it grows larger is to contain its general and administration expenses
while continuing to invest in research - the SET labs (these work on future technologies and
business methodologies), funding educational research, the leadership institute, the domain
competency group (this creates expertise in application areas like manufacturing and retail) and
so on.

"We have to transform into a Boeing 747 even while flying over the Atlantic. We can't land.
There's only water below," says Murthy.

He also addresses the immediate concerns of the global analyst fraternity - the weak demand for
IT. "The days when you could walk in with mumbo-jumbo and get a cheque signed for a million
dollar are over. We have to show customer value in terms of shorter cycle time, increased
customer base, reduced costs or increased revenues. There has to be a quantitative model to show
ROI in a convincing manner. All Infosys proposals now go out with that in the first page. Even
intangibles have to be quantified," he emphasises.

Suddenly, the global positioning of Infosys gets stronger. Murthy takes a dig at Cisco. "John
Chambers went gaga over his company's real-time information in 2000. He kept at it even in
Davos in January 2001 and the very next month they had an inventory crisis." He says, in
December 2000, when Infosys realised that the market was off, it did 17 customer surveys from
end-December 2000 to 9 April 2001. Thereafter, it cut its growth estimate to 30%. "This, when
we had done 90% the previous year. You know how our competitors fared...," says Murthy. He
has positioned Infosys alongside Cisco for Krishnan.

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4:00 p.m.: By now, Murthy has been through 10 more meetings. Not all of them have to do with
his global role. This, the day's last meeting, is important. In 30 minutes Murthy will leave to fly
to Mumbai for the annual Nasscom dinner. But before that, the chief mentor sits down with his
lieutenants, CEO Nandan Nilekani and CFO Mohandas Pai, to discuss Infosys' 2002-03 annual
report.

For Murthy, this is religion. After all, despite all his "gallivanting", as he likes to put it, he can
preach to only so many people. But the Infosys annual report can reach many, many more. All
through the late 1990s, the Infosys annual report has been used to make a statement - they have
always carried stories about company employees. This time round, the message has to be about
how global Infosys is now. So the stories in the report have to show cultural diversity.

Five minutes into the discussion on the annual report, and you realise that the spin is still
Murthy's.

8:45 p.m.: Murthy is perhaps bantering with his Nasscom buddies in Mumbai. I am back home
after having been with Murthy continuously for eight hours. By now, it is clear that history will
remember him. But it is still not clear whether only as a businessman, or something more.

His interests are clearly beyond just plain business. For a while, he has been researching on child
labour. Over lunch with prospective customers, Murthy espoused his theories on the subject.

Then again, he is on the advisory panel of the UN secretary general Kofi Annan's public-private
initiative to bring the benefits of communication and technology to the masses. That's right
beside technology radicals like Nicholas Negroponte (MIT Media Labs), John Gage (Sun
Microsystems' chief scientific officer), Tim Berners-Lee (of www fame), Vinton Cerf (co-
designer of TCP/IP) and Mohamed Yunus (Grameen Bank). The private partners include Carly
Fiorina (Hewlett-Packard), John Chambers (Cisco Systems) and Jorma Ollila (Nokia).

Little happens in Murthy's life by accident. As mentor to Smita Murthy, a young employee,
Murthy stressed the need to create a roadmap for one's life. "Create a model of the likely profile
of your life five years hence - office, home, hobbies, home and social context," he told Smita.
"Have you started reading the sign-posts along your road?"

Five years hence, the next generation of Infosys leaders will be in the saddle. Infosys will,
perhaps, have become a global company. And Murthy will be over 60. Yesterday's CEO and
today's unlikely power player may just become tomorrow's... There are enough empty canvasses.