As-a-Service Economy<\/a>“. And erstwhile product companies are looking to become services companies. So for us become a product company would completely miss the point. Our goal is to stay a services company and deliver, however we want to deliver more and more value using software, using IP, using reusability of components and capabilities across engagements. That is exceedingly important, and transformational. We do have many software assets, such as our Finacle banking suite and AssistEdge for customer service. But those software packages or products are surrounded by services.<\/p>\nPhil: <\/strong>There\u2019s a very different mindset between a traditional software business and a traditional services business, Vishal, which you should know better than anyone with your SAP history. How are you going to approach that with Infosys? Are you going to try and find a meeting in the middle of these mindsets and cultures?<\/span><\/p>\nVishal: <\/strong>Yes, we will be a services company that uses more and more software. Most other services-type industries have evolved into that. Think about healthcare. If you go to Stanford Hospital, you have a surgeon with a great context provided to him or her by Stanford. If the same surgeon showed up somewhere else, say in Kenya or India, it is still the same person but the surrounding context is completely different. On a recent flight back from China I watched the movie \u201cChef,\u201d about a Michelin-star chef who ends up in a food truck. Again, it\u2019s still the same person with the same capabilities, but in a different context. I think that the context we put around our people can be great amplifiers, can be great enablers for them to deliver tremendous non-linear value. Yet the mechanism of value is the service and the person who provides the service. So, it is not that we have become a product company, but more and more a high value delivering services company.<\/p>\nPhil: <\/strong>Let\u2019s talk a little more about your idea of \u201cDesign Thinking\u201d. You talked about thousands being trained on it. How far do you plan to take that?<\/span><\/p>\nVishal: <\/strong>I\u2019d like to take it as far as it can go, Phil. The whole exercise is about getting people to think openly about why a certain thing is not there. Customers come and tell me that they want this, they want advice from us on what they are doing and how they can do it better. They ask if we see something in their processes that can be done better. I recently spoke with a customer who asked about completely touch free invoicing. While he was focusing on the fact that his company has 40 percent touch free invoices, I said the real question was about the remaining 60 percent.<\/p>\nThe reality is that companies don\u2019t know what their problems are. It\u2019s our job to be innovative and more open to helping our customers find and identify problems. And to become more confident that while we don\u2019t know what tomorrow\u2019s great problem or opportunity is going to be, we will help our customers find it. And then, of course, once we find it, our education, our knowledge, and our background gives us the tools to solve it. We\u2019ll go after it and solve it together. Design thinking really is about that. In the 1950\u2019s, when Polya wrote his book on problem solving, problem solving was the big deal in education. Now, I think it\u2019s problem finding.<\/p>\n
Phil: <\/strong>So Vishal\u2026 \u00a0you\u2019ve been ordained the emperor of the IT services business for one week. What the one big change would you make?<\/span><\/p>\nVishal: <\/strong>Get the company, and the industry, to focus more on innovation. Today, most businesses see a tremendous disruption, a transformation, happening to their industry, to their company. They are interested in solving tomorrow\u2019s problems, and that requires us to be problem finders, not just problem solvers. That requires us to become people who can help companies become innovative and relevant. My strong desire is to get the IT services industry out of this downward spiral of progressively lowering cost, jamming people into the supply chain faster and faster from worse and worse colleges, and shoving them into projects faster and faster. This is the wrong direction. Instead, doing more with less for more is a much better idea. That\u2019s what I would love to do.<\/p>\nPhil:\u00a0<\/strong>Vishal Sikka – thanks for your time today – and look forward to hearing from you in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n(Vishal Sikka was appointed CEO of Infosys in June, 2014 – his bio can be accessed here<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vishal Sikka (pictured right) is CEO, Infosys Technologies The most eye-opening personnel decision in the services industry this year has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,78,81,88,91,830,98],"tags":[303],"ppma_author":[19],"yoast_head":"\n
When Blood is Sikka than Water: Vishal's Infy Honeymoon has some Legs - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n