Five Elements of Success

From the man who knows a thing are two, NR Narayanamurthy of Infosys.

Five elements of success:

• Openness to learn: Openness to subordinate your ego to take ideas from others.
• Second, meritocracy: The best ideas are adopted and implemented using data to arrive at the best decision.
• Third, speed: Assuring you do things faster compared to yesterday and last quarter.
• Fourth, imagination: You continually bring better ideas and better innovation to the table.
• And finally, excellence in execution: That is implementation of these great ideas with a higher level of excellence today than yesterday.

Mr. Narayanamurthy is touring US now before he retires from active work at Infosys in a couple of months. He spoke to Business Week recently about globalization and its impact on India and US. His interview makes an interesting reading, particularly his spin on how globalization has affected domestic brands in India.

But the effect of globalization in India has been much larger. For instance, we had our own auto industry. The cars were not very good. But, still, they were being made in India. Today, we have GM, Toyota, everybody and his brother in India assembling lots of cars. Many of these companies import parts from other countries. As a result, the opportunity for job creation has not been as much as if the parts were made in India.

Similarly, we had our own computer industry. They were not the best. But our people were producing them. When the famous computer companies came to India, we lost a lot of jobs. The same happened with the global soft drink companies.

Probably 2 million or 3 million Indians have lost their jobs. So, do you keep all the multinationals out of India. Or, because 250 million middle-class Indians have benefited, do you embrace it? My view is we should embrace these global corporations, we should accept globalization, because it has benefited the large majority.