Opinion No reliable info on Infosys

Infosys Technologies has been a spectacular story. Its colourful cast of founders has been vocal about it,in bits and parts: how it evolved from a $250 seed capital to a multi-billion dollar enterprise. How it grew from seven founders to over a 100,000 employees. How it broke India’s family-run company mould and charted the unfamiliar path of a professionally-run company sharing wealth and upholding corporate governance principles.

But many details along the way are fuzzy. Where,for instance,did Infosys’ $250 seed funding actually come from? According to an early account,the seven founders led by co-founder and chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy put together the seed funding to start the company in July 1981. Another popular version goes that Murthy’s wife Sudha gave up her life savings to seed Infosys.

One of the lesser known episodes in Infosys’s near-blemishless story is the parting of ways of one of Infosys’ seven original founders,Ashok Arora. With Arora’s exit,Infosys inadvertently became a company solely of south Indian origin — three from Karnataka,two of Kerala origin and one from Tamil Nadu.

Over a decade after its launch,Infosys went public in 1993 at an offer price of Rs 95. But its public offering almost did not go through. At the last hour,Wall Street bank Morgan Stanley came along to pick up a chunk of the shares on offer. The events of those few weeks could have been nothing short of gripping.

A few years ago,book publishers — both Indian and foreign — were beating down the road to Infosys,asking to write the official story of the company. But,invariably,the answer from Infosys’ founders was never in the affirmative. Meanwhile,at rival Wipro,even the normally-reticent Azim Premji had gone ahead and authorised its story in a book called Bangalore Tiger,authored by an American journalist.

The lack of an Infosys book has certainly not been for the want of in-house authors. In fact,two of the founders and their wives are all published, even acclaimed,authors. Former CEO Nandan Nilekani who quit Infosys last year to head the government’s Unique Identification project wrote Imagining India. Chairman Narayana Murthy authored A Better India,a Better World. Murthy’s wife Sudha has authored several dozen books translated into various Indian languages while Rohini Nilekani has written medical fiction.

Asked if a book on Infosys was in the works,Nandan Nilekani said he had left Infosys in July 2009 and only Murthy could answer that. Murthy,for his part,parried,“No such book”. It appears that the Infosys story will remain untold for now,or at least the authorised Infosys story.

As the old saying goes,a good company’s corporate history is as compelling as a novel. In India’s thriving economy,companies are being founded and go global within the span of a few years. But it is not an Indian practice to archive the notes,plans,early schedules and other material that go into creating a company.

Rarely recorded are early employee interviews,stories,and the intense emotions of the people who gave their all to creating the company,all of which would render authenticity to a company’s history. And without such material to rely upon,stories about the greatest Indian brands could end up as sanitised versions of history.

An authentic history of Infosys could be so much more than just a riveting story. It would be the repository of the DNA of a company that has become the stuff of legend.

saritha.rai@expressindia.com