BENGALURU: In January 1981, 35-year-old N R Narayana Murthy sat down in his apartment to discuss with six other software engineers – Nandan Nilekani, Kris Gopalkrishnan, SD Shibulal, NS Raghavan, Ashok Arora and K Dinesh – about how they could build a company that would create software codes. The idea might have seemed like a Herculean task but six months later on July 2, 1981, Infosys was officially registered as a private limited company. The rest is history as the company successfully turned 41 this year.
The founding fathers of Infosys recently met, but this time at the company’s B’luru campus, which is spread across a sprawling 81 acres, with around 3.5 lakh employees. The journey has not been easy. “The moment I am asked what keeps me going during difficult times, I say ‘respect’. I want to be able to earn the respect of all my stakeholders 20 or 40 years from now. So, my fervent request to all the wonderful entrepreneurs who are so smart, is to take a few minutes from their busy schedule and think about the issue that is raised and how we can earn the respect of every single person,” Murthy said, addressing an auditorium full of people at a programme to commemorate the milestone.
Looking back in time, Gopalkrishnan, co-founder, recalls the totally different circumstances under which Infosys started. “When the company was set up in 1981, there was no internet, no social media, and no venture capital. There was only the spirit of entrepreneurship. Back then, there was no company that was globally competitive. A set of first generation entrepreneurs took that plunge. Things are very different today. But a part of that credit goes to our generation of founders who had that confidence to do something different,” Gopalkrishnan had told CE in a freewheeling conversation recently.
A company has to stand the test of time. And Nilekani, who lightheartedly calls himself ‘the last man standing’, says you have to stay relevant to sustain in business. “If you become irrelevant, then nobody is interested in you, customers don’t want to hear from you and employees don’t want to work with you. A big achievement in the last several years has been keeping Infosys relevant,” says Nikaleni, who went back to Infosys in 2017 to be part of the board of members and continues to serve in the post.
TV Mohandas Pai joined Infosys in 1994 as the chief financial officer and also served as board of members between May 2000-July 2011. “Even though Infosys has grown to be a large-scale global powerhouse, it still retains its culture of a small company in its transparency. It has its own challenges, you need to manage expectations of thousands of people, and it’s a tough task,” says Pai to CE.
Infy Timeline
Wind Beneath My Wings
N R Narayana Murthy started Infosys by borrowing Rs 10,000 from his wife Sudha Murty, and it was likely the best financial investment. Looking back, Sudha Murty says it was hard to have a work-life balance during that time. “When you want to achieve something with passion, work-life balance won’t work. That time Narayana Murthy was working hard, he didn’t have any time to give to the house. I was giving my 100 per cent at home. I adjusted depending on Murthy’s work,” says Sudha, who soaked in the four-decade celebration by shaking a leg to singer Shreyal Ghoshal’s live performance of Barso Re Megha recently.
A realm of faith that transcends logic
We got listed on NASDAQ on March 11, 1999. The first investor presentation was in February 1999 in Toronto. I had excruciating tooth pain. So I went to a 7/11 store next to my hotel, and I bought a cutting plier. Sometime during midnight, the pain worsened. So I prayed to God, took the pliers and pulled off the tooth. Everything went dark and I thought I was gone. But God is great. I was able to practice for the presentation and did a fantastic one the next day. That’s why faith is very important.
- Narayana Murthy, co-founder, Infosys
(With inputs from Uma Kannan)