Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan talks to B&E’s Editor and Deputy Editor about recession, recovery and succession planning
B&E: Your failures as CEO. What have they been?
KG: Well, growth has been a failure for me; it has significantly come down – from 35% to 7% to 0. It is a failure in some sense, since the opportunities are there, we have customer relationships, so I do feel we could have done better. Some initiatives I am taking are taking more time to yield results, that is initiatives in terms of new business development, new markets etc. At another level, the high amount of repeat business (97.6%) is a failure. In good times, high repeat business is very good strategy; in bad times, bad! So should I architect a new sales strategy? We need a lot more hunters (who get newer businesses) than farmers (who maintain current businesses).
B&E: Jack Welch had a list of successors in place and Warren Buffet also has his envelope ready for years. What about Kris?
KG: We have an executive council which has a small number of leaders, five, who could any day takeover as CEOs. Beyond that, we have about 50 people identified as Tier 1 leaders, who also are prospective CEO material. We have a special program for development of these leaders by the board members.
B&E: Do you have a preference for any functional expertise in your prospective bunch while selecting the future CEO?
KG: Well, growth has been a failure for me; it has significantly come down – from 35% to 7% to 0. It is a failure in some sense, since the opportunities are there, we have customer relationships, so I do feel we could have done better. Some initiatives I am taking are taking more time to yield results, that is initiatives in terms of new business development, new markets etc. At another level, the high amount of repeat business (97.6%) is a failure. In good times, high repeat business is very good strategy; in bad times, bad! So should I architect a new sales strategy? We need a lot more hunters (who get newer businesses) than farmers (who maintain current businesses).
B&E: Jack Welch had a list of successors in place and Warren Buffet also has his envelope ready for years. What about Kris?
KG: We have an executive council which has a small number of leaders, five, who could any day takeover as CEOs. Beyond that, we have about 50 people identified as Tier 1 leaders, who also are prospective CEO material. We have a special program for development of these leaders by the board members.
B&E: Do you have a preference for any functional expertise in your prospective bunch while selecting the future CEO?
KG: Functional expertise, actually, that is a big challenge. Once you develop a functional expertise, it becomes difficult to focus. We are not doing a good job with respect to job rotation. We are trying to replace that by giving them [prospective successors] certain experiences, giving them corporate responsibilities, and running certain programs with them so that they can get an experience of different roles as well.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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