| electrical engineering. Narayana Murthy’s wife, Sudha Murthy,
| Modern Business Leader Analysis| ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND BEHAVIOR| Falls Term 1 201110-13-2011Team Members: Praveen MenonRashmi Shrivastava| Table of Contents 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………. …………………..
3 2. Leaders Background………………………………………………………………………………..
4 3. Leadership Philosophy………………. ……………………………………………………………. 5 4. Leaders Accomplishments………………………………………………………………………….. 8 5.
Lessons Learned………………………….. …………………………………………………………10 6. Conclusion………. …………………………………………………………………………………. 13 7. References….
. ………………………………………………………………………………………. 4 Introduction: The objectives of this manuscript are to help you understand Narayana Murthy’s background, his philosophies, accomplishments, and lessons to be learned from his career. He started a company in 1981 with an equity capital of $200, but with his sound management skills, Mr. Murthy has taken Infosys to the pinnacle of success in two decades.
He is the Founder-Chairman of Infosys Limited, and his company, Infosys, was the first Indian company listed on NASDAQ in 1999. This manuscript will not only allow you to learn a lot about Mr.Murthy who has done the remarkable work in the field of IT, but also to understand the corporate social responsibilities.
Narayana Murthy is currently serving as a Non-Executive Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys Technologies Limited. He is a good example of Charismatic, Transformational, and Transactional leader. He has a unique personality and is known for his simplicity and his helping mentality. The whole idea of creating Infosys was to help the needy people as a social welfare.
“A true leader is one who leads by example and sacrifices more than anyone else, in his or her pursuit of excellence. -N. R.
Narayana Murthy, Chairman, Infosys. Leaders Background: Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy was born in Mysore, Karnataka on August 20, 1946. He received his master’s degree from IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) Kanpur in 1969 after he graduated from the National Institute of Mysore in 1967 where he received his bachelor degree in electrical engineering.
Narayana Murthy’s wife, Sudha Murthy, is known as a philanthropist and author. He started his career as head of the computer center at IIM, Ahmedabad.In 1972; he went to Paris where he was part of the team that designed a400-terminal, real time operating system for handling air cargo for an airport. Narayana Murthy was an activist and mingled with French communists during his stay in Paris but his outlook changed while traveling around Europe. He believed that the only way to pull India out of poverty was to create more jobs by setting up new companies.
He returned to India in1975 and joined Systems Research Institute, Pune, (Maharashtra). He then headed Patni Computer Systems Pvt. Ltd. , Mumbai, (Maharashtra) before founding Infosys in 1981 by leading a team of six other members.Murthy was named by Time as one of the most influential global executives in 2001. Four years later, he was voted as the most admired CEO in the world in global study conducted by Burson-Marsteller with the economist intelligence unit. After serving Infosys for 21 years as CEO, co-founder Nandan Nilekani succeeded Murthy in 2002.
In 1999, Business week named him one of the nine successful entrepreneurs. From 2002 to 2006, he served as an executive position of chairman of the board. Leadership Philosophy: * The Strategist- There was hardly any software market in India during the period of 1980s.Mr. Murthy focused on US market majorly being the world’s most challenging market and he strongly believed that Indian software companies had a lot of competitive advantage in exporting various products. * The Global Delivery Model- Large scale software development projects were divided in to tasks that were expected to be carried out at the client location, few other tasks were required to be carried out closer to the client place, tasks that could be done remotely with help of process-driven technology centers along with highly skilled manpower.
The GDP project work typically gets carried out in a 24/7 model, with help of teams located at different geographical locations across the globe. * Expanding GDM- Infosys launched GDM Plus in 2003 which enhanced the service delivery model leading to more services and execution excellence. GDM Plus was strategic response to changing market needs along with competitive landscape to deliver high volumes to customers. Execution excellence was achieved through business solutions, technology, domain expertise, quality, operational efficiency and people development. PSPD model: Infosys had a very powerful mantra for a successful business model known as ‘PSPD’ model which stands for – * Predictability: Maintaining long term relationships with all the key clients in business lead to a better understanding of the various future trends in the global IT marketplace. Most of the time (95%) Infosys gets repeat business which is among the highest per industry standards. This enabled a better visibility of growth for the management.
Sustainability: Over the years Infosys has been successful in transforming a large number of their customers into partners and have builded on innovative processes and technologies providing the much-required sustainability to company’s growth. * Profitability: Infosys has been continuously moving up the software value chain impacting margins in recent times on account as these services carry a higher onsite proportion. A lot of gradual off-shoring services will help the company pare margin decline. Productivity is improved to great levels by the rising contribution of high-value services. De-risking: Focus of revenue for Infosys is gradually shifting from the US region to Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific. Infosys made some strategic decisions by reducing its exposure from a few clients while still having one of the largest client bases in the industry. Infosys have taken each step carefully with aim of de-risking the ongoing business model.
* Pioneer in HRM & Employee Stock Option Plan: Mr. Murthy says lead his company as a HR-based industry. Mr.
Murthy strongly believes that peoples performance in the knowledge industry is as valuable as gold.He motivated employees by introducing Employees stock option plan (ESOP) in order to work smarter and harder. * Under-promising & Over-delivering: Mr. Murthy has this great philosophy that helps him build a healthy long-term relationship with his colleagues, employees, family, friends, business associates and network of shareholders. * Customer is the King: Customer needs should be taped carefully delivering more than what they expect. Mr. Murthy always believes in giving value to the customer, being very fair to people and through transparency in working.
Mr.Murthy quotes “Growth comes from repeat business, repeat business comes from relationships, and relationships with customers are built on trust and trust is built by delivering quality products”. * Social being: Infosys practices its Social responsibility very well and thereby making a significant difference to society earning their trust and there by emerging out as long term players. Mr.
Murthy works for the society through rehabilitation drive, literacy program, donations etc. * Entrepreneurship is a marathon: Mr. Murthy strongly thinks entrepreneurship is a marathon and longevity as the key to a successful corporation.Infosys witnessed a steady growth in revenue with profitability for 49 quarters. * Value system: In long term vision the company needs to have very sound value system in which the personal goals need to be advanced only by placing the interest of Corporation ahead. Key factors to scalability and longevity are youth and empowerment. High confidence and a powerful leadership are required to make the impossible look possible.
Speed, imagination and excellence in execution are some of the context-invariant and time-invariant attributes for success. Trust of employees and investors: Leadership by example helps in gaining trust of people. Customer satisfaction should be always our ultimate goal which can be only accomplished by making our customer look good in front of their customers. * Employee retention: Low employee turnover was another strong point of Infosys that lead to a fast paced growth when compared to other companies.
Infosys had a proactive Human Resource Development practices that boosted the retention capability. Surveys state that turnover rate at Infosys was around 11% while the industry average was over 25% during the 1990s. Fearless environment: Mr. Murthy believed in creating an open environment inside the organization where employees can give their suggestions and openly disagree without any fear. * Integrity: Integrity is one of the key attributes of a leader and Mr. Murthy never compromised on his values and always had the courage to motivate and lead the team fighting for their values and truth. Leaders Accomplishments: Narayana Murthy has been awarded a number of times by many reputed organizations around the world for his phenomenal contributions in the field of IT development.
Some of them are listed below. He had been awarded many honorary doctorate degrees by some of the leading universities across the globe. * For his vision, wisdom and understanding of IT industries, Narayana Murthy had been invited by many educational institutions across the globe to be the member of their advisory boards i. e. Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, Yale University, Indian School of Business, Cornell University and the University of Tokyo. * He is the first Indian awarded with the Max Schmidheiny Liberty prize and the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year award. Mr.
Muthy was ranked in the list of businessmen and innovators published by India today, CNN, Fortune, India Today, Business Standard, Forbes, Business Week, Time, and Financial Times. * Mr. Murthy was voted by Time Magazine as one of the Asian heroes, along with Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, who have brought revolutionary changes in the last 60 years. * Mr. Murthy has been working as independent director on the boards for DBS Bank, HSBC, NDTV, Unilever, Ford Foundation, UN Foundation and Indo-British Partnership. * Member of the Board of Directors for different institutes i. e.
Singapore Management University, the Board of Overseers of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Asian Institute of Management (AIM), the School of Management at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Asia Business Council and and International Institute of Information Technology. * In 2008, he received the “Padma Vibhushan” award by the Government of India. * In 2008 he received the Officer of the Legion of Honor by the government of France and the CBE by the British government. * IAOP, in association with Fortune magazine, inducted N. R. Narayana Murthy into ‘The Outsourcing Hall of Fame’ in 2008. In 2005, Mr.
Murthy was ranked 7th in the global study of most admired CEO/Chairman in the world by Burson-Marsteller and Economist Intelligence Unit and also was ranked 8th in the list of the top 15 most admired global leaders by The Economist. * For three consecutive years from 2004 to 2006, he ranked first in the list of India’s most powerful CEOs by Economic Times. * In 2003 he received “Asia’s Businessmen of the Year” from Fortune magazine * In 2001, he named among the “25 most influential global executives” by TIME/CNN. * One of the 50 most powerful people in Asia for 2000 by Asia week. In 2000, he received the “Padma Shree” award from the Government of India. * Business Week’s one of “The Stars of Asia” (1998, 1999 and 2000). * 1999: Business Week named him one of the nine entrepreneurs of the year.
* In 1997 awarded with “Ratnabhushan” award from FIE foundation. * In 1997 awarded as Business leader of the year from Business Barons. * MR Murthy received JRD Corporate Leadership Award from All India Management Association (1996).
Lessons Learned: He has been constantly ranked high among top business leaders/influential personalities by renowned media organizations like The Economist, Time, and CNN etc.His leadership lessons are most sought-after, not only by Indians but even by managers in other countries. After reading Mr. N. R Narayana Murthy’s success story, leadership style, strategy and views I learned various lessons. Some key lessons are described below. * Learn from mistakes and never hesitate to try new things with the fear of failure.
* Thinking big while not hesitating to Start Small. He had only knowledge and conviction as capital. In 1981 to start Infosys he borrowed Rs 10,000 from his wife Revenue of Infosys in 2011is US$ 6. 041 billion. * Leadership by example is the best way to build trust in followers.
Where you started is not important . The important is the learning you got from your experience. One should always be ready and open toward learning. * A leader should invest in learning and training programs. Murthy always invested in learning programs during his career. * Key essential qualities for entrepreneur are Passion, will to persevere, giving more priority to the long-term interests, High levels of optimism, high aspirations and being a team player.
* According to Mr. Murthy, these four things can be instrumental in launching a venture: The Idea, Market value of the idea, team of complementary skill sets and high Aspirations. Value system is very important for any organization. Value system creates the environment where people have enthusiasm, confidence, self-esteem and belief in fundamental values.
In this kind of environment are ready to face difficult situations and take critical task. * One basic duty of a leader is to raise the confidence of the followers. He should be able to generate hope and energy among followers to face difficult situation.
Required to make them believe that good time will come very soon with the help of their hard work, determination and positive attitude. * A leader needs to evelop open environment in the organization where they have transparency about the organization’s operations. In open environment employees can accept their mistakes, give suggestions and disagree without fear. This also a good way to develop trust and confidence in employees, stakeholders and customers. He always followed the rule, “When in doubt, disclose” * Taking bold and firm decisions is the key quality of a leader. * A leader needs to support and motivate his followers for innovation in organization.
* To build a long term future for an organization leader needs to develop a sense of ownership in employees. Employees are the most important asset of any organization. To satisfy investors and customers the biggest instruments are employees of the organization.
Leader need to develop environment of transparency, honesty, openness, fairness and meritocracy inside organization for their employees. * Society provides customers, employees, investors, bureaucrats and politicians. Therefore, earning the goodwill of every society that we operate in is extremely important for any organization. * Another important part to focus is the society as organization is operating in society.
For long-term relationships and success organization need to develop goodwill of society is among the most important factor. As our employees, customer, investor and politicians all are part of the society. * Respond according to the situation and make advantage of the opportunity. As during Y2K problem Infosys take is as an opportunity to build long-term relationship with the customers. * For better future we should recognize our weakness, learn from our mistakes and continuous improvement.
* Sharing the wealth with employees gives them a sense of ownership and help in employee retention.After the IPO Mr. Murthy decided to share a portion of equity with employees. * Keep life simple, easy and straight. That way, you get to work more and worry less. This will create less worry.
And you can concentrate on your work more. * Courage to take initiative and making right decision is a trade leader. Mr. Murthy took various bold and innovative decisions during his career. i. e. Listing of Infosys in NASDAQ as first company from India was a great achievement and Infosys was the first Indian company to get the award for highest quality certificate.
Conclusion:Narayana Murthy is a visionary who applied his leadership skills to built one of the biggest IT Company in India. Murthy’s articulation, design, and implementation of the Global Delivery Model have become the foundation for the great success in IT outsourcing from India. Murthy has not only made money for himself but also has done lot of charities which is the top priority a business man should take into consideration. After analyzing Narayana Murthy’s personality, values, and attitude, I became to understand that a person can become successful only if he has good personality, values, and attitude.Narayana Murphy’s a person who took risks, did hard work, patient for results and cooperative.
These qualities of his made him successful. He has set new standards in corporate governance and morality when he stepped down as the Executive Chairman of Infosys at the age of 60. Reference: Abhay – “Narayana Murthy” – http://ekikrat. in/Narayana-Murthy Ajay Niranjan – “Narayana Murthy on the essence of leadership”- http://greathumancapital. wordpress. com/2007/02/11/narayana-murthy-on-the-essence-of-leadership/ Beyond Horizons – “Leadership Lessons at Infosys: Narayana Murthy’s farewell letter” – http://beyondhorizons. n/organisational-development-leadership/leadership-lessons-at-infosys-narayan-murthys-farewell-letter/ Equitymaster.
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