INFOSYS – KNOW ABOUT ITS TRAILBLAZING SUCCESS STORY

THE HISTORY OF INFOSYS

Infosys came into being by the efforts of seven engineers namely, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, S.Gopalakrishnan , S. D. Shibulal , K. Dinesh , N. S. Raghavan and Ashok Arora. Infosys started out as a private consultancy service company in the city of Pune, Maharastra. That time, it went by the name of Infosys Consultants Private Limited on 2 July 1981. After two years of functioning, Infosys shifted its headquarters to the silicon valley of India, the then Bangalore in 1983. The company had an initial funding of a meagre capital of just US $ 250 in 1981.

Between 1981 and 2011 company underwent a few changes in its name. The name of the company changed to Infosys Technologies Private Limited in April 1992. Furthermore, it eventually became Infosys Technologies Limited when it became a public limited company in June 1992.

Once again, the company underwent renaming to Infosys Limited in June 2011.

THE EARLY STRUGGLES AND FLIGHT IN THE BUSINESS

The initial years were tough for the company as TCS was already in the business for a long time and had a good market presence in India. Infosys became a publicly listed company in 1993 with an initial IPO offer price of ₹ 95 (equivalent to ₹550 or US$7.80 in 2019) per share against a book value of ₹20 (equivalent to ₹120 or US$1.60 in 2019) per share.

However, things did not go well for the company and the IPO went under-subscribed. However, due to the external help from US investment bank Morgan Stanley, Infosys remained in the market. Morgan Stanley picked up a 13% equity stake at the offer price. In 1999 denoting a success, Infosys was able to get its shares listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange as American depositary receipts. This was a great success for any Indian company.

Furthermore by the year 2000, Infosys expanded its business to humongous heights. In fact, it was one of the top 20 companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The huge surge in the business of Infosys is very much clear for its annual revenue which was around the US $ 100 million in the year 1999 which surged to the US $ 1 billion in 2004 and the US $ 10 billion in the year 2017.

GLOBAL PRESENCE AND SUBSIDIARIES OF INFOSYS

In three decades of its functioning Infosys has stretched its legs in every corner of the world. Today Infosys has its presence in more than 50 nations of the world with its 80 sales and marketing offices and 125 development centres. Infosys has a number of subsidiaries companies all over the world which has taken the business of Infosys global.

Some of the major companies acquired by Infosys between 2002 to 2020 are Portland Group , Skytree, GuideVision, Kaleidoscope, Noah-Consulting , Expert Information Services , Lodestone Holding AG , WongDoodyand many more.

Infosys is a listed company in most of the major stock exchanges of the world. It is a listed company on India’s BSE where it is a part of the BSE SENSEX and the NSE where it is a NIFTY 50 Constituent. It is also a listed company on the American exchange Nasdaq, where it became the first Indian-registered company to list Employees Stock Options Schemes and ADRs.

PRODUCT AND SERVICES OFFERED BY INFOSYS

In the field of IT services, Infosys has a prominent position world wide. Infosys has a wide spectrum of services to offer to its clients which include: –

IT infrastructure services
Business Process Outsourcing services
Engineering and Industrial services
Global Consulting
Asset Leveraged Solutions.

Finacle universal banking solution is one of the most popular services provided by Infosys in the field of retail and corporate banking.
Next Generation Integrated AI Platform ( NIA ) is also a very popularly growing venture of Infosys.

Additionally, other than these some of the major services by Infosys included, Infosys Consulting services , Infosys Information Platform (IIP) , Infosys Engineering Services , Digital Marketing Services , EdgeVerve Systems, Panaya Cloud Suite and Skava.

LEADERSHIP IN INFOSYS

The huge credit of the success of the company goes to its leadership. Furthermore, Infosys in its four decade long business has seen many able leaders.

At the time of the foundation of the company in the year 1981 N.R. Narayana Murthy, who was one of the seven founders became the CEO. He held the position for the next 21 years and made the company a global venture in the true sense.
After Murthy, the baton of leadership was passed to Nandan Nilekani in 2002 and he held this position till 2007.
Subsequently, S. Gopalakrishnan succeeded Nilekani in April 2007 and remained CEO of Infosys till August 2011.
Furthermore, S. D. Shibula became the CEO of the company between the period of August 2011 to July 2014
Consequently, Vishal Sikka took over for a period of 3 years and remained CEO from August 2014 to August 2017.
UB Pravin Rao served as CEO for an interim period of August 2017 to December 2017
Finally, Salil S. Parekh was appointed the CEO of the company in January 2018.

EMPLOYEES AND TRAINING CENTRES OF INFOSYS

Infosys provides direct employment to more than 2.5 lakh employees worldwide. Moreover, an interesting figure is that out of total strength of employees, around 40 per cent are women. Infosys has its training institute situated in Mysuru. The Infosys Leadership Institute (ILI), based in Mysuru trains around 4000 persons every year for their different roles in the company. Additionally, Infosys also runs the world’s largest corporate university named Infosys global education centre which trains thousands of engineering graduates every year.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS TO THE COMPANY

Infosys had contributed to the Indian and global economy through its various products and services and due to which it received various awards and recognitions worldwide.

Furthermore, Infosys was included in the Hall of Fame of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India ( ICAI ) in 2006 for being the winner of Best Presented Accounts for 11 consecutive years.
Additionally, Forbes included Infosys in the list of the world’s most innovative companies in the year 2012.
In 2013, Infosys was ranked 53rd in Forbes list of World’s Most Innovative Companies.
Additionally in the same year, HfS Researchranked it as 18th largest IT services provider in the world.
Again in 2019, Forbes awarded Infosys as the 3rd Best Regarded Company in the World.
Furthermore, Infosys was included in the year 2017 into the Winner’s Circle of HfS Blueprint for Managed Security Services, Industry 4.0 services and Utility Operations.
Infosys received United Nations Global Climate Action Award in the ‘Climate Neutral Now’ category in the year 2019 for its environmental friendly action.
Additionally, HFS Top 10 Agile Software Development 2020 report ranked Infosys at the top in software development.
Moreover, Newsweek’s Green Rankings included Infosys in the list of top twenty green companies.
Avasant in 2020 recognised Infosys as the leader in Retail and CPG Digital Service

PRESENT MARKET POSITION OF INFOSYS

In the field of tech and IT Infosys is positioned second in India and just next to TCS. Forbes Global 2000 ranking Infosys is the 602 nd largest public company in the world 9nterms of revenue generated. By the end of the year 2020, its market capitalisation was the US $ 71.92 billion and its profit increased despite the slowdown amidst covid calamity.

By the year 2020, the Infosys had Revenues worth ₹ 93,594 crores ( US $ 13 billion ) along with an Operating income of ₹ 22,007 crores ( US $ 3.1 billion ). In the same year, the Net income of the company was around ₹ 16,639 crore ( US $ 2.3 billion ) and Total assets worth ₹ 92,768 crores ( US $ 13 billion ) along with Total equity of ₹ 65,450 crores ( US $ 9.2 billion ).

Infosys BPM, EdgeVerve Systems, Infosys Consulting are the major business divisions of Infosys employing more than 2.5 lakh employees world wide.

Nandan Nilekani is the current chairman of the group and Salil Parekh is the current MD & CEO of the Infosys group.

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