Sanjay Purohit of Infosys Delivers Lecture on 'Dynamic Strategy' at IIM Kozhikode

Sanjay Purohit of Infosys Delivers Lecture on 'Dynamic Strategy' at IIM Kozhikode

The Industry Interaction Cell (IIC) and Abakus (Systems Interest Group) of IIM Kozhikode, as part of IIC's Leadership Series invited Mr. Sanjay Purohit, VP & Head, Corporate Planning & Strategy, Infosys, to the institute campus in Kozhikode. Mr.

Sanjay Purohit enlightened the eager minds on the topic "Dynamic Strategy as a Source of Competitive Advantage".

Starting with a brief history about Infosys over the years, Mr. Purohit noted how important decisions were based on corporate strategies and long term development themes. He enlisted the various factors on which the corporate strategy for the organization was based on. He remarked that strategies evolve as we travel through time; because the environment is fluid we have to constantly think on the move. Talking more on the business model of Infosys, he opined that there are enormous opportunities for the company and that a lot still needs to be done. As an example, he mentioned the point about creating a more global workforce; despite Infosys having employees of over 72 nationalities, Indians make more than 95% of it.

Strategies should increase profitability, growth prospects, as well as be sustainable and predictable. These are the principles guiding the corporate strategy of Infosys, said Mr. Sanjay Purohit. Stressing on the importance of flexibility in tuning the strategies, he remarked, "It is like the capability to change the engine mid-flight over the Atlantic." Painting a picture of the evolution of the IT / ITES landscape, he said that the industry has evolved from providing programming services and project implementation to business engineering services and business strategy providers in recent years. The next step for Infosys is to anticipate the customer's problems and provide necessary solutions which requires a strong sense of the fast changing environment.

He also elaborated on the 'brand positioning' and 'brand image building' strategies of Infosys. Today, Infosys is viewed as a high quality and low cost service provider, which the organization leaders want to change as a 'complete partner for business transformation'. He also quoted numerous instances of how Infosys provided better value to customers by innovative and cost advantageous solutions. He also cited examples where the company took certain decisions consciously, and which were not merely a product of coincidence and ignorance.

Answering to questions from the students, Mr. Purohit elaborated on how the strategic decisions manifested themselves in all the important decisions like organizational structure, budgeting practices, corporate intelligence, product portfolio & mix, talent retention & development, and also the branding efforts. Mr. Sanjay also pointed out that Infosys was the first to point to the looming economic crisis ahead of the competititors, which according to him, could be attributable to certain strategic initiatives.

Concluded.

Contributed by -
Media Cell,
IIM Kozhikode.

MBA Alumni \| MBA Students \| MBA Aspirants \| MBA Forums