Narayan Murthy

“Our assets walk out of the door each evening. We have to make sure that they come
back the next morning”

LDR Workshop g45 | Group 3

Arya Baranwal
Dhruv Dhochak
Prerna Agarwal
Ritu Meena
Umang Panchpal
Background ● Born in Mysore, Karnataka in the year 1946

● Son of a school teacher

● Masters degree from IIT Kanpur in 1969
● Founded Infosys in 1981 and was CEO till
2002
● Served as infosys chairman during 2002-
2011
Early work and Career ● First job at IIM Ahmedabad as Chief System
Programmer
● Started a company named Softronics in 1976
that failed to perform well
● Joined Patni Computer Systems in Pune
● Founded Infosys with initial capital injection of
₹10,000 put in by wife Sudha Murthy
Awards ●
●
Padma Shri in 2000
E&Y entrepreneur of the year in 2003
● Honorary Commander of the Order of the British
Empire in 2007
● Officer of the Legion of Honor in 2008
● Padma Vibhushan in 2008
● Woodrow Wilson award for corporate citizenship in
2009
● IEEE Honorary Membership in 2010
● NDTV Indian of the year’s Icon of India in 2011
● Hoover Medal in 2012
Important lessons from Narayan Murthy’s life
Lesson 1: Learn when to ● Murthy began his entrepreneurial journey by
starting Softronics.
cut your losses ● One and a half years into the operations of
Softronics he realised that the company was
not viable, he cut his losses as soon as possible
and moved on
Lesson 2: Never give up ● Despite the failure of Softonics, Murthy kept
working on his goal of being an entrepreneur
● Murthy started Infosys in 1981 from a meagre
Rs 10000 which he had borrowed from his wife
● Infosys was a successful venture and is one of
the biggest employers in India today
Lesson 3: Place the ● In the early days of infosys Murthy took a pay
cut while the salaries of other co founders was
workforce first increased by 10%
● According to him, it was a show of commitment
to the firm
Lesson 4: Sharing is ● Murthy assured that post the IPO of the
company, Infosys shared a portion of equity
caring with their employees
● This created a sense of loyalty in infosys
employees
● Total value of stocks granted to employees
exceeds Rs 50000 crores
Lesson 5: Learn to ● During an annual general meeting of Infosys,
Mohandas Pai, an argumentative accountant
recognise talent kept asking several questions aimed at the
leaders of the company
● Instead of ignoring him, Murthy enthusiastically
responded to his queries
● Murthy recognised his potential and hired him
as an accountant in Infosys
● Mr Pai later was a member of the team that
helped Infosys get listed on the NASDAQ
Lesson 6: Foster young ● Murthy decided to set a retirement age of 65 for
the company’s initial founders
talent ● He did it to encourage young talent and
leadership at the company
Lesson 7: Division of ● One of the things that make Murthy so
successful was the efficient way he divided the
labor is key tasks among the employees.
● Even during the early times of the company he
made sure the work was properly divided and
everyone had distinct job responsibilities.
Nadan was responsible for sales, Shibu for
technological development, Dinesh for quality
and Raghavan for HR