Infosys Case Study

Case Study One

Monday, July 10, 2017

Executive Summary:

        Infosys has been a leader in the Information Technology Solutions field for many years with revenues in FY 13 in excess of $7 billion (Chari and Gill, 2015).  The study below highlights various approaches to answer Dr. J.K. Suresh’s question of: “What changes to the KM system, if any, would improve the company’s ability to move its services to the next level?” (Chari and Gill, 2015).  The established criteria to prove a successful proposal are knowledge impact, cost reduction, stakeholder satisfaction, and the overall application. Each criterion would have to transform, optimize, and innovate the way Infosys’ clients do business. It is also the hope, that the chosen approach will provide Infosys the ability to realize 30% of its total revenue from sales-oriented activities (Chari and Gill, 2015).  After looking at various alternatives, the selected one is to develop Syster, which will provide stakeholders with access to external knowledge. The development of this system will create a need for increased partnerships with software startups in order to increase Infosys’ Market Intelligence.

Define the Problem:

Unprecedented. Impossible. Who? Where?

These are the words that have come to define the early stages of Infosys. Who would have thought that a company half a world away from modern Western society with only $250 to its name on day one would become such a juggernaut in the Information Technology and Software Services industry? Certainly not most people but N.R. Narayana Murthy did. With the vision of 7 individuals in Pune, India, Infosys developed into the premier destination for IT solutions with over $10.2 Billion USD in revenue in 2016 (About Us, 2017).

Big. Cumbersome. Old.

These are the words that Infosys is actively and desperately trying not to emulate. The company has been witness to this emulation too many times not to see it in themselves. Company after company, and story after story, has shown Infosys’ systems and solutions heralded as the savior for their clients, only for the clients to be disappointed when it does not meet their expectations. Don’t misunderstand, the prescribed solutions provided everything that the clients need but not always what they had envisioned. Information Systems and Information Technology can provide an endless and exponential number of solutions to companies, but once set into motion with a particular system the functions are severely limited in what clients can do within that particular system. Such is the curse of Information Technology. The worst thing one consultants can hear while in consultation with a client is “This is great but I wish it could do…”.

Infosys’ mission is to make other companies’ systems easier when it comes to IT Solutions, but lately it seems they may not have been completing that ideal within their own ranks. Much of the early success at Infosys, which culminated in employing more than 150,000 individuals, came from the inexpensive service that workers in their home country of India could provide. This work was equal to work in the U.S. and more developed countries but at a more cost effective level. Additionally, the amount of Knowledge Management within the company produced cutting edge ideas that kept them on the forefront of the IT solutions field. As the years passed by and nations like India, Brazil, China, and Russia developed, the price of goods grew concurrently. The work produced by Infosys’ workers in India could now almost equal in cost those in other places around the world. Margins shrank and the company had to seek other less developed areas of the world. These nations in turn also developed and the margins continued to shrink. Infosys’ is losing a war, and if they cannot find a solution soon they will fall behind too drastically to be effective. Sure, they may hold on for some years to come but in the end they will have no more effect on nor provide legacy to all the great work they have accomplished these past four decades.

Dr. J.K. Suresh, Vice President and Principal Knowledge Manager at Infosys, has charged the Area Directors within its ranks to develop a list of proposals to improve the knowledge management systems. Much of the current knowledge management is created, developed, and housed in-house through repositories, contact databases, and metadata databases (Chari and Gill, 2015). Employees are encouraged to add to the total knowledge management (KM) through an incentive program. Certain employees can after a time become KM Champions and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) with the necessary knowledge of systems and products. However, all too often these individuals are “transition[ed] from these roles (within or outside Infosys), without leaving enough proprietary knowledge in the KM systems at Infosys (Chari and Gill, 2015).” The cost of training new employees to become KM Champions and SMEs has started to become too much to justify. The KM systems are outdated and no longer effective to generate the talent and ideas within their own ranks. They must seek this information from within and without the company in the future. This case study will attempt to provide a list of proposals, debate the merits of each, and select and provide a plan of action for the selected proposal.

Establish the Criteria:

The successful proposal must meet the following criteria: knowledge impact, cost reduction, stakeholder satisfaction, and the overall application (Greco, Grimaldi, Hanadni, 2013). Each criterion should allow users to transform, optimize, and innovate the way they currently do business, which are the ways Infosys delivers measurable business value (Chari and Gill, 2015). In addition to this criterion, the new proposal must also allow Infosys to increase its total revenue from product sales oriented activities to more than 30% (Chari and Gill, 2015).

When evaluating knowledge impact, Infosys needs to focus on creation, accumulation, transfer, and diffusion (Greco, Grimaldi, Hanadni, 2013). The new system should facilitate knowledge creation through internal and external sources. Accumulated knowledge needs to be easily accessible to individuals and should be able to be transferred to users whenever it is needed. Lastly, as a result of the successful implementation of the other components, knowledge should be diffused throughout the organization (Greco, Grimaldi, Hanadni, 2013). The new product will allow Infosys to transform the way clients do business by making knowledge more accessible to all clients.

The new proposal needs to provide Infosys with overall cost reduction in both capital and operating expenses (Greco, Grimaldi, Hanadni, 2013). Although there may be an initial cost increase, Infosys should recognize long-term cost savings through the system. A new system or set of systems could provide savings or additional costs in the areas of staffing, infrastructure, taxes, or areas unknown at the time of implementation. The new proposal must optimize the way a client does business; making their operations efficient while being on-time and on-budget.  The successful proposal will also allow for expenses to decrease overtime by contributing to a more efficient system at Infosys.