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Summary From The Interview of N R Narayana Murthy Published in Harvard Business
Summary From The Interview of N R Narayana Murthy Published in Harvard Business
Over his 30-year tenure, Murthy has largely succeeded. He helped create a $6 billion technology firm with over 134,000 employees, pioneered an innovative way of delivering software services globally, and strove to make Infosys the epitome of a good company. Thats a reputation that is hard won and easily lost, especially in India today, where companies are notorious for their lack of transparency. In fact, public outrage against corruption reached a flashpoint in August 2011, with millions taking to the streets in protest. As businesses gird for change in India, Infosys faces its own turning point. In August, Murthy stepped down as chairman, according to plan. In this interview, Murthy explains that building a values-based firm is a never-ending process. Leaders must demonstrate that values matter every day, at every turn. Where as far as culture is concern Excellence in community engagement, labor relations, environmental protection, corporate governance, and supply chain accountability isnt easy to achieve. But in the long run, top performance in those areas strengthens an organization, as the five companies profiled in this article demonstrate. They prove that doing the right thing isnt at odds at all with building the bottom line, and in fact it can be integral to a firms economic logic. Governance A growing number of socially motivated entrepreneurs have been creating new kinds of organizations that combine a social mission with a business engine. Unlike typical for-profits, these forbenefit enterprises have social or environmental outcomes as their ultimate bottom line; and unlike typical nonprofits, they derive their income mostly from the sale of goods and services rather than from grants and donations. They defy classification as pure business or nonprofit; rather, they are a blend of the two. Many more such enterprises would exist, except that few entrepreneurs have been able to choose forbenefit as a legally recognized organizational structure. Most countries legal and economic systems allow only for-profit or nonprofit activity; entrepreneurs must shoehorn their vision into one or the other structure.All this seems destined to change. The rise of that sector is likely to reshape the future of capitalism. On the contrary, argues Lev, an accounting professor at NYU Stern: Investors want more information, and they will reward companies that make it available. Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, Lev maintains that investors care a lot about what drives a companys long-term growth; however, they often need help understanding what the drivers are available. Strategy Although most companies have collected lots of friends and followers on social platforms such as Facebook, few have succeeded in generating profits there. Thats because they merely port their digital strategies into social environments by broadcasting their commercial messages or seeking customer feedback.
To succeed on social platforms, says Harvard Business Schools Piskorski, businesses need to devise social strategies that are consistent with users expectations and behavior in these venuesnamely, people want to connect with other people, not with companies. The author defines successful social strategies as those that reduce costs or increase customers willingness to pay by helping people establish or strengthen relationships through doing free work on a companys behalf. Managing Technology Cloud computing is a sea change in the way companies use technology; its as inevitable and significant as the shift from steam power to electricity on the factory floor. Because criticisms of the cloud have gotten a lot of hype, however, many companies are hesitant to explore it. In this article McAfee, a principal research scientist at MITs Center for Digital Business, debunks commonly cited concerns about the cloud. When it comes to cost, reliability, and security, he says, the cloud promises to equal or better on-premise computing. Moreover, as the experiences of companies like 3M, the global contractor Balfour Beatty, and the consulting firm CSC show, cloud computing offers sizable benefits, such as improved productivity, easier collaboration, the ability to mine data for insights, and higher capacity without major capital investment. So here in this interview all the aspects have been taken care of like technology, government,ethics etc.