What Next For Infosys?

With Sikka’s exit, and no clear successor in sight, the IT giant faces a colossal crisis.

- Venkatesha Babu

It’s a bromance gone awry. An internecine feud involving whistle-blower complaints, allegations of financial malpractice, abdication of fiduciary responsibilities, a patriarch who refuses to quietly walk away into the sunset, a divided board, external and internal turmoil, executive exits, angry denunciations and power grab. The goings-on at India’s second largest IT service exporter would make for a splendid soap opera plot line.

Often called iconic, the industry’s bellwether and many such sobriquets, Infosys is facing an unprecedented crisis after its first non-promoter CEO and MD of the company, Vishal Sikka, resigned over what he called “false, baseless, malicious and increasingly personal attacks… amplified by the very people from whom we all expected the most steadfast support...”

The accusations were around alleged kickbacks received and paid, nepotism, extravagant expenditure and high-handedness. Besides, there were conflict about the strategy and way forward for the company, as well as trust issues between the management and the promoters.

The “people” Sikka made an oblique reference to were the promoters who had built the company for the first three decades of its existence.

Nobody saw this coming in April 2014 when Founder and Chairman Emeritus N.R. Narayana Murthy announced Sikka’s hiring. It was seen as a match made in heaven. Sikka, with his phenomenal product development success at global enterprise software major SAP, was seen as the perfect candidate to help Infosys transition from being a low-end player – but till then, lucrative – in the services sector.