Sikka fans the winds of change in Infosys

Glasnost seems to be sweeping through India’s most talked about IT company, Infosys.

With former SAP AG Director Vishal Sikka taking over as CEO, purse strings have been loosened, unnecessary controls have been done away with and even the mandatory tie has been made optional for male employees.

Sikka, through various e-mails since he took over in August, is driving home the point that engaging with employees more intensely is the key to re-inventing Infosys and if it is to return to the high-growth path and become the IT bellwether again.

Apart from the fact that all employees will now have access to social media sites like Facebook (one of the first things Sikka did after assuming office), he has now allocated a separate budget for employee engagement, to sharpen the focus on team-building efforts.

“Sikka is putting far more emphasis on re-training, re-skilling employees instead of trying to hire a newer set as it would consume more time and effort — something Infosys can ill afford at this point,” an analyst with a brokerage firm said in a note to investors.

Sikka recently hired Michal Reah, a former SAP executive, to head Finacle, a banking product unit, as he believes that the product business will be the key focus area for the company going forward, and indicating that Infosys will not just stick to its core business of being a software services company.

Sikka had, in an e-mail, sought feedback from employees to improve the company’s all-round performance. He has now decided to act upon the feedback by setting up a SWAT team to review processes and systems on an ongoing basis. Infosys has also decided to allocate unit-level discretionary funds.

An employee who did not wish to be named said that while these steps are welcome, Infosys should start increasing salaries through special incentives for better performance as well as bring down bureaucratic controls bogging down productivity.

BS Murthy, CEO of executive search firm Leadership Capital, said thechanges were bound to happen given that Infosys made the biggest hiring decision in its history by bringing in an external candidate as its head.

“Invariably, the new leader will start by re-defining the character of the organisation — including the way they work, interact with customers, price services, etc.”

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