Vishal Sikka sanguine about Infosys future

Bengaluru: Less than a year after taking the helm of India’s second-largest software services exporter, Infosys Ltd’s chief executive officer (CEO) Vishal Sikka is a lot surer about which way the company is headed.

“I’m vastly more confident and comfortable about the future,” Sikka, 47, said in an interview. “Most people do not really understand what it was like when I started. We needed to stabilize then. And now, we all are excited. People are excited because they know they are involved in something great.”

At the time he took over on 1 August as the company’s first non-founder CEO, Infosys was seemingly foundering after a dozen top-level exits, having lost its tag as the bellwether of the software services industry after falling behind its peers.

The former SAP AG executive unveiled a strategy called ‘new and renew’ to bring about a cultural shift in the mindset of its workforce and make it embrace new-generation technologies, including automation and artificial intelligence.

Sikka is confident that the initiatives Infosys has taken under his watch should help the company clock 13% growth in its traditional software services exports business in each of the coming five years as its sets out to become a $20 billion entity by 2020.

Infosys also remains focused on winning more “mega deals” and generating additional business from existing clients, through a clutch of measures including design thinking, a user-centric approach to solve problems.

In the interview, Sikka said the target of $20 billion in revenue by 2020 should be looked at as more of a “guidepost”; recent acquisitions of automation firm Panaya and mobile commerce firm Skava are measures that will help the company work towards it.

“About $16.5 billion would come from renewing the existing business, a result of design thinking, innovation culture and zero distance coming into every project. That means growing at 13%, which I believe is very much achievable,” he said.

Infosys Technologies Limited