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Panaya halves staff strength

Last Updated 22 November 2017, 12:01 IST

Infosys has reduced staff at its Israeli subsidiary Panaya two years after its acquisition. The company has reduced about 100 employees in the company which had 250 on its rolls.

Infosys acquired Panaya, an Israeli automation technology firm founded by Yossi Cohen, in 2015. Panaya provides cloud-based quality management services for enterprise applications worldwide.

According to sources familiar with the development, neither founders nor the top management of the company who made it a successful tech company are with the organisation.

"Panaya had 250 members during its peak period and now it is brought down below 150. Infosys fired the CEO and top management after taking over and many employees quit the organisation," sources told DH.

According to David Keynan, Vice Chairman of Indo-Israeli Chambers of Commerce, who introduced former CEO &MD of Infosys Kris Gopalakrishnan to Panaya during his visit to Israel in 2007, the company is really going through a bad phase in the US.

"It was clear back then that the Panaya software as a service(SaaS) model was a threat to Infosys,"he said.

Whencontacted,Infosys stated that there has been no systematic headcount reduction. "The reduced headcount is a result of attrition and optimisation of the sales force as the team has been integrated into the overall Infosys ecosystem," staes the company.

Jake Klein, who was an investment banker and worked with Infosys as Corporate Development Vice President, later became Panaya CEO. Israely sources said it is unprecedentedan investmentbanker becomingaCEOofacompany.

Panaya acquisition was a bone of contention among Infosys board and founders. Cofounder N R Naryana Murthy, whoallegedgovernancelapses and ouster of Vishal Sikka on theissue,wantedthecompany to publish whole details of the acquisition.

Infosys had appointed US law firm Gibson Dunn and Crutcher, and global risk consultancy and investigations firm Control Risks to look into the issues raised by the whistle blower and founders.

Infosys board headed by Chairman Nandan Nilekani gave a clean chit to the controversial $200 million Panaya acquisition by former MD and CEOVishalSikka,sayingthere was no merit in the allegations of wrongdoing.

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(Published 22 November 2017, 11:56 IST)

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