Friday, March 12, 2010

Is Infosys heading for (Resource) Crisis?

According to most of the new papers and blogs, Infosys is already headed down itself into serious resource crisis. While Economic Times says "Infosys may have seen 4,000 staff exits in February", according to Hindustan Times "S. Gopalkrishnan CEO and managing director of Infosys shot off a mail to Infoscions last week seeking to assuage hurt sentiments, obliquely admitting that the management was willing to address some of the critical issues that employees are not happy about".

The problem looks two fold. "Business turn around in the IT space in India" appears to be an official reason "the HR policies are seen as the main catalyst" for the accelerated exodus.

Again according to HT: "officially, Infosys says its attrition level is 11.6 per cent for Oct-Dec 2009. However, industry sources say the current quarter, whose figures will be disclosed only next month, has been a matter of concern for the company in view of a higher-than-expected departure of employees. Company officials are not giving details". But the numbers on the blogs are going as high as 12,000 since Jan 2010. That is dangerous, and alarming figure.

No wonder, alarmed by turn of events Kris, the CEO promised "a task force to look into and champion employee engagement in every unit"

Is it too late? Probably yes, according to some of the blogs over the Internet. While most blame "poor HR policies and recent iRACE implementation as trigger", general consensus is "Infosys already moved away from the business ethos of iconic founder, N R Narayana Murthy".

Infosys is no doubt is having turbulent times since the down turn started. It is struggling to balance amongst the many for example - market expectations, growth, return, employee expectations, values and probably greed of few Infocians. Unlike most of the Indian companies - Infosys is built on the NRN brand and his legendary rag to riches story.

While most of the early Infosians - became dollar millionaires, many are left out in the growth story. In addition to this, the general feeling amongst the employees is "they are tech coolies" and while they "slog and work hard being billable" most of the "cream is taken by the 'non working' managers". While this is a long term issue for most of the Indian IT companies, the new angle for Infosys today is "HR poking". Added to this, most of the Indian IT companies are struggling to match the MNC's like Accenture who are keen to beat them on their own turf.

As seen, most of the bloggers are not mincing words to blame Mohandas Pai or Nandita Gurjar, senior vice president and global head of human resources, for the current exodus. It is nothing more than HR fiasco. And here is the key indicator: "HR always have sweet and sour policies. We have to see which policy is in play to measure the state of the company. In case of the Infosys, without any doubt, sour policies are in play and business should have understood the point"

Even with 20,000 resources on bench of the 100,000+ Infocians, if the emerging numbers are true, then Infosys is indeed in deep trouble. It also clearly tells that, all those who are leaving are getting better opportunities and hence the rivals are cashing on the Infosys crisis.

With NRN and Nandan Nilekani off the radar, Kris term is due to end - I think Infosys is going to face more domestic challenges than any other Indian IT company.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

And to add salt to the injury, Nandita goes reporting the exodus is due to improved market conditions. Not once has she apologized for the pet iRace project screwing what was once India's most respected company. I quit because I was frustrated with false values Infosys showcases in the press. Internally, they try to screw you whenever possible -
1. 9:15 - Infosys cut salaries of employees not averaging 9:15. However, that money WAS not reimbursed to the clients. Since they cut my money for not working, it should have been reimbursed to the clients as well!!!
2. Dress Code : They fine you! And god knows where this money goes. They claim charity, but I really doubt. I suspect that money goes to maintain Mr Pai's beard.
3. iRace = iCrap.