Reflections on my turning points- Personal, professional, social and philanthropic

“Luck is all about being prepared to grab opportunities”- Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan

It was February 9^th 2011; the stage was set for Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan to deliver one of the best lectures MILS has ever hosted. Mr. Gopalakrishnan, an alumnus of IIT Madras, is one of the seven founders of Infosys Ltd. He took over as the CEO and Managing Director of Infosys Ltd. from Nandan Nilekani in 2007 and is now serving as the co-chairman.

Mr. Gopalakrishnan began the talk with the citation of Global Delivery Model (GDM) that was pioneered by Infosys. GDM ensures the effective/ efficient distribution of application and business process lifecycle activities and resources, while ensuring their integration; key drivers of GDM being: processes, quality, tools, knowledge management, program management and risk mitigation. After discussing the key points of GDM, he stated that IT industry has a full range of offerings and it has a long way to go.

Mr. Gopalakrishnan shared some anecdotes from his entrepreneurial journey; how he was able to contribute to the inception of Infosys with the other six founders. After passing out from IIT Madras, he joined Patni Computers. Thereafter, the idea of starting off a venture struck them (all 7 founders), and eventually he took a loan from his family for setting up Infosys in 1981. The founders were denied of loans by banks, which motivated them to become a zero “debt” company. Mr. Gopalakrishnan gave a useful tip for fund-raising when he quoted “The best time to raise funds is when you are doing well”.

He gave some interesting insights into what aspects a firm should concentrate on to be successful. He stressed on the importance of teams; how valuable it is for the team members to have similar values and aspirations. Referring again to Global delivery model, he said “cheaper is temporary, but faster is permanent” to emphasize on the fact that “competitive advantage based on just cost is temporary”. Another interesting thought that he shared was about leadership and its significance. Referring to Infosys, he said final decisions are made by the CEO and success of company is kept above individual success as far as any decision is concerned.

Taking Infosys as an example, he said that it’s imperative for an organization to pace itself and “adapt the model to suit constraints”.  Infosys laid its foundation in the years 1991-1999. It became the first Indian company to get listed on US exchange. 1999-2004 was the “scaling-up” period; during this period they reached the mark of one billion dollars in terms of revenue. 2004-till date is the period of diversification and globalization for Infosys. Infosys is still growing at the rate of 16% which is tremendous as far as current global scenario is concerned.

It was an honor to be a part of the audience to which Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan was addressing. The lecture was intellectually stimulating and “constructive” if I can put it that way, for an MBA student.

Compiled By:

Aditya Ghai

MILS | Batch of 2013

Photo Courtesy:

Mauryanath Das

DoMS Interface

Batch of 2013