What is wrong with Infosys? Challenges ahead...

Attracting Talent
This is the biggest challenge faced by Infosys today. Infosys needs a "brand" revamp with respect to its prospective workforce. The competition from other companies is immense and people scout for better opportunities, better salaries and better brand name. In fact, this challenge is not just limited to Infosys but can be safely extended to other Indian IT companies like TCS, Wipro and the likes. The biggest testament to this fact was that in my own college, TCS was not invited for campus placements this time. Reason - they were paying too low and with McKinsey and other top companies recruiting from the college you can imagine the opportunities available today.

Retaining Talent
This point is closely linked to the above point but there is a fundamental difference. I do not buy the idea of "Attracting and Retaining Talent" as the single biggest challenge. These are two separate issues and they need to be tackled independently. I can give an insider's view on this. As I see it, Infosys has lost the personal touch, it no more cares for its employees as it used to do some 5-7 years back perhaps. Ground reality is that an "individual" has been replaced by the term "resource"...literally. Why should an employee pay out of his own pocket for the hotel or the cab if he is relocating to a new location? How can a company expect an employee to find an accommodation right from the first day in the US if the only prior exposure to US to that employee has been perhaps through Hollywood movies, FRIENDS and Sienfield? Agreed, if the salary which an employee was getting was amongst the highest in the industry no one would ever complain, but this is also far from reality with Infosys salaries just hovering around the industry "average". Retaining talent is definitely a challenge and nothing less than a revolution is required to change some of the policies which are negatively impacting the employee morale.

Training Talent
Well, "Talent" seems to be the buzzword. I can't help it. If a company feels that passing a mandate for compulsory certifications is good enough, something is terribly wrong. I cleared the "technical" certification last time and I admit blatantly, I don't know a word. I have seen this company grow from 20,000 employees to its present with more than 80,000 employees and I have personally witnessed the drop in the quality of work being produced. OK, this is related to my first argument about hiring talent, we are working on it but we also have to work on training the existing talent which we have. Knowing the fact that we might not be attracting the best, raises the criticality of this point to unimaginable levels. Basic processes, professional communication and skills like these can be taught. Infosys has supposedly one of the best training plans, but have those training centers become mere assembly lines where there is the concept of one size fits all? I am not sure, but anecdotal evidence says that this might be the case. There has to be a better feedback mechanism for employees and a careful monitoring by the HR department at an individual level to help the employees become competitive and fit to deal with global challenges.

"Phony" Processes
I was once very proud of Infosys's strong processes and I would not lie - I still am! But, a part of me also believes that Infosys sometimes has to carry the burden of its own processes - which are becoming more and more rigid with less flexibility for customizations. Again, we need to realize they a "One Size Fits All" approach will not keep us in the game for too long! Just a very small example which is on top of my mind because we are currently grappling with it. If some stuff needs to be sent from the client location to an offshore Infosys office, common sense would dictate that it would be the sender of the goods who would be more concerned about the documentation. Well, as expected, Infosys had a multiple page document outlining the policies and procedures for such a process. Agreed, it is required for a company as large in scale as Infosys, I won't argue about that. But then being picky with the each and every detail in your policy is where the trouble starts. What if the client (who is sending the stuff) has a different policy and there is a conflict? Infosys will demand evidence, emails, client confirmation, client policy documents blah blah before it waives a simple rule in it's policies regarding loaned hardware. In the process, we have lost vital days, frustrated the client, and wasted important effort which could have been put to good use otherwise. Do we actually need such tight processes? Are we under matured? In fact, I think we have over matured and we need to loosen a bit.

Middle Management Crisis
I just can't emphasize how the middle management is negatively impacting the grand vision which NRN had for Infosys. Every manager in the company seems to be having a personal agenda which may or may not be aligned to Infosys's vision. How true it is - An employee does not leaves a company, he leaves his manager! We need to strengthen the middle management, infuse some fresh ideas and new breed of managers who can actually see beyond their limited scope of work. Instead of micromanaging they need to act as visionaries, motivators and lead by example for the younger generation. If you are in a position where you can impact your team member's career, it is your responsibility and a tacit commitment that you will do your best to ensure that the talented individuals (who are fast becoming a rarity) are identified and their career is well planned. They are given equal growth opportunities and the high performance work ethic is enforced. Promotions are not based on mere number of years of work experience and pre conceived notions are not formed about an individual by seeing how much experience he has.

I feel, these are just some of the challenges faced by Infosys today and most of these would be applicable to any other Indian IT services company also. These are solely my personal views and what I feel and I might be wrong. I would welcome any comments if you have any.