Infosys Competitive Advantage

Overview

The Infosys Journey

2005

Infosys crosses USD 1.6B (05-06 projection $2.1B) in revenue and has over 49000 employees, with 454 clients

Page 5

Vision:-To be a globally respected corporation that provides best-ofbreed business solutions, leveraging technology, delivered by best-inclass people."

Mission:- "To achieve our objectives in an environment of fairness,

honesty, and courtesy towards our clients, employees, vendors and society at large.

Values
Infosys value system is best articulated by the acronym C-Life Customer Delight, Leadership by Example, Integrity & Transparency, Fairness and Pursuit of Excellence. The major objective of the company is to become Indias most respected company. Infosys deliberately defocused on revenue and profits. Their goal was to do everything by the book

Competitive Advantage of Infosys 1. Cost Leadership Strategy Of Infosys

Log in on time It recently announced an initiative as per which if an employee reaches office before 8 am throughout a month, he will get a cash award of about Rs 500. The move is aimed at increased utilisation of its transport services and to beat the traffic, which will result in higher productivity for the company. The company operates several buses to transport its employees. "This is to make sure that the buses are full. The capacity usage of the buses is very low at the moment," said Bala. Discretionary spend slowdown Discretionary expenses have been drastically reduced across the company. The Infosys senior management and board members have already offered to cut down their discretionary spends. This includes brand building expenses and sales & marketing. "We are looking at cutting down some of the discretionary expenses. The travel cost has already come down significantly. However, we are not cutting any necessary expenses on things like training and R&D," said Gopalakrishnan.

Deliver or. . . Infosys has placed around 5 per cent of its global workforce under the scanner. It has told its senior managers to give the lowest performance rating (4 on a scale of 1-4) to the 'underperforming' 5 per cent as a part of the company's consolidated relative ranking. Though rock-bottom rankings have been handed out earlier, this is the first time that Infosys has made it mandatory. The move is expected to affect over 5,000 employees. The company has decided to implement a six-month mentoring programme for such employees after which it will decide their future based on the improvements they have made. As a part of this programme, each affected employee will be asked to work under the supervision of a mentor who is a senior executive. During this period, the employee will not be given any important assignment, even though he will be allowed to work on the project where he is working at present. If the concerned employee is on bench, he will give all his time for the mentoring programme. During this time, the employee will get full salary as well as the regular allowances. "While 50 per cent of such employees come back to the system, others get the message and quit voluntarily in most cases," Infosys Vice-president and Group HR Head Nandita Gurjar said. Travel economy Infosys has asked its staff to travel on an economy-class ticket if the flying time is less than four hours. Variable pay cut It is looking at slashing the variable pay component of its employees' salaries. Time for a sabbatical Employees have been issued letters stating they could opt for a one-year sabbatical to engage themselves in philanthropic activities. They would continue to draw 50 per cent of their salary during the period. However, only those employees who have been on the company rolls for at least two consecutive years before are eligible for the offer. A panel comprising senior members of the Infosys leadership team will decide each case. Smaller pay hike

Employees may get pay hikes below 10 per cent this year, the company's chief financial officer S D Shibu Lal has said. Which means they are lot luckier than many others who have had to face pay cuts, longer working hours, additional responsibilities and even job loss.

2.

Superior Innovation :A. Green Innovation

Infosys is focused on Green IT to improve the quality of life, protect the environment and transform business. From an enterprise cloud to smart grids within our campuses, we have piloted several green applications locally: InGreen Energy Management Our application evaluates energy consumption patterns to identify opportunities for energy optimization. Automated data gathering and intuitive data visualization enable tracking and reporting of energy related data at consolidated and granular levels. Smart workplaces Intelligent cubicle design techniques and sensors provide volumetric lighting by detecting movement of employees and assessing body temperature to calibrate the intensity of light. Carbon footprint calculator Our patent-pending, desktop personal carbon calculator measures an individual's carbon footprint and reports the carbon credits required to offset it. A sustainability portal guides employees on how to reduce their ecological impact. Responsible computing Terminator, our desktop application prompts employees to switch off their Personal Computers (PCs) towards the end of the day. PCs shut down automatically after a pre-defined idle period. Car pooling Our online tool facilitates group travel among employees. The tool is being shared with companies in the vicinity across our Development Centers in India. Infosys is set to become carbon-neutral by 2012. Our global customers partner with us to transform into low-carbon businesses. We reduce their carbon footprint by innovating across their product lifecycle. We have developed green IT solutions for companies across industries:

Automotive: We redesigned the sub-frame assembly and reused components to enhance the fuel efficiency of semi-trailers at an automotive major. Manufacturing: We helped a global aluminum manufacturer save US$ 1 million per furnace annually by automating and integrating melt furnace operations using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) technology to reduce energy consumption. Telecom: We improved scheduling and utilization of the field workforce at a leading telecom company in the Asia-Pacific region. It minimized operational costs and reduced truck rolls to customer premises by 50%, significantly reducing their carbon footprint. Insurance: Our workflow-based document management system transformed underwriting into an automated business process for an insurance company. It realized annual savings of US$ 300,000 in office supplies and record storage, while drastically reducing consumption of paper. Resources: Our integrated ERP solution automated the business processes of a SouthEast Asian forest resource and wood products company. It enhanced the reforesting program, optimized transportation across processing facilities and distribution networks, and reduced carbon emissions. B. Finacle : Infosys product on global retail core banking solution, its global leader in this segment .

3. Customer Responsive Model The Field Optimization Solution, Developed by Infosys and BT, Helps Serve Customers Better BT, a world leader in communications, provides innovative telecommunication, broadband and internet products and services. Information Age highlights how BT enhanced its customer service by implementing the Field Optimization Suite (FOS), jointly developed by BT and Infosys, to serve customers quickly and more efficiently. BT's mobile workforce of over 28,000 service engineers visits customers at home to address service complaints. The company realized that prompt service was dependent on factors such as demand, availability of engineers and equipment, traffic delays, etc. Infosys streamlined BT's bespoke systems and incorporated relevant information into the existing business processes, ensuring enhanced customer responsiveness. Suite Uses Service-Oriented Architecture to Predict Demand FOS enables managers to allocate resources and plan service engineers' appointments based on location. The solution uses Service-Oriented Architecture to predict demand by applying decision support algorithms to data from BT's customer relationship management system. Infosys incorporated its patented J2EE Enterprise Application framework, RADIEN, for faster turnaround times.

The Infosys-BT solution has resulted in improved customer service and workforce productivity. According to Gilbert Owusu, technical group leader at BT's Intelligent Systems Research Centre, "More accurate allocation of resources has made it more likely for issues to be resolved on the first visit, which, along with improved punctuality, has boosted customer satisfaction."

4. Superior Quality Assurance

Four Rs' of Software Quality Assurance IT organizations must adopt a focused approach and a comprehensive methodology for endto-end testing. In a SearchSoftwareQuality.com blog, Infosys' expert identifies 'four Rs' in software quality assurance: Risk: Risk-based testing helps quantify and mitigate risks in the lifecycle of applications, and prioritize tests more effectively. Return on Investment: Automation improves ROI of testing significantly. In addition, environment optimization and reducing dependencies maximize the Return on Investment early in the application lifecycle. Regulations: The focus of regulatory compliance is on safeguarding the privacy of customers. Independent verification and validation services are required in a landscape where different entities within the enterprise may be responsible for regulation and compliance. Rich customer experience: Tools for 'eye-capturing', early code, and prototyping enable early testing of usability, flexibility and accessibility of software. Our expert also mentions the shift from User Interface to end-to-end testing with distributed, multi-tier architectures in Service-Oriented Architecture and unique approaches to ERP testing.

5. Location Advantage (Advantage India)

Cost of an engineer is about 20 40 per cent of the comparable cost in European Union (EU) . Selling, general and administrative costs approximately 80 per cent of comparable cost in EU . Average offshore billing rate at US$ 20 to 35 per hour; about 50 to 70 per cent lower than EU 6,75,000 technical graduates per annum, of which 4,00,000 are engineers. Over 50,000 MBAs graduating per annum .