Sikka exhorts employees to focus on innovation

Unperturbed by the comments of founder promoters, Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka has asked employees to focus on innovation and promised top ten teams $10,000 for their innovation.

In a letter to employees on completion of three years as head of the company, Sikka said the world is going through a profound and disruptive change, largely driven by technology. “We have a unique opportunity to help our clients by bringing Automation on the one hand and Innovation on the other, both in areas where they are renewing core businesses,” he said.

Infosys chief said great innovative thinking has to be rewarded, and the company has been doing so for a while now with Zero Distance (ZD) quarterly incentives and the client testimonial contests.

“But it’s time to take it up a notch. We will be rewarding the top ten most innovative teams $10,000 each, every quarter, to recognise the best. These teams live ZD, and are amazing examples of what we can achieve, together. More on this is coming soon too. So keep innovating, and keep improving,” he stated in the letter.

He also pointed out that Infosys must do this on the foundation of learning and entrepreneurship, in which the company engages with clients to find and solve their most strategic, most challenging, business problems.

“We need to massively embrace automation in the commoditising parts of our core business, and bring grassroots innovation into everything we work on; software, wherever possible our software, must amplify our services in an increasingly software-defined world, and we must elevate our relationships with clients to be strategic ones, not ones at the receiving ends of choices made by others,” Sikka said.

He pointed out that doing so requires to reach back within and to learn, to exercise learnability. “Learn about AI and automation, learn about new technologies, but most importantly learn to learn, to innovate, to build creative confidence,” he said.