BANGALORE: 10 lessons from life and times of NR Narayana Murthy

BANGALORE: NR Narayana Murthy, who celebrates his 75th birthday on August 20, is a role model for not just what he achieved but also how he did it.

Born in  Shidlaghatta town of Chikkaballapur district of Karnataka, this iconic IT entrepreneur has, before retiring, graced many hats at Infosys, such as chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president, and chief mentor.

Here are 10 lessons from Murthy’s life and times that all individuals can emulate and learn from.

1. Trust Yourself

Murthy, a self proclaimed ‘socialist’ in the mid 1970s was jailed for 72 hours in Bulgaria. It was a bitter experience on a train in 1974 in Nis, a border town between what is now Serbia and Bulgaria, that turned Murthy into a ‘compassionate capitalist’. The experience taught him that entrepreneurship and job creation is the way to alleviate poverty.

To that end, in 1976, Murthy founded Softronics, a company that lasted a year and a half. When he realised that his first venture wasn’t taking off, he moved on.

In 1981, a determined Murthy started Infosys with Rs 10,000 he borrowed from his wife. In few years, Infosys went on to become one of the largest wealth creators in the country.

2. Have Integrity

When Infosys was set up, Murthy took a pay cut while salaries of other co-founder’s were increased by 10 percent. According to Murthy, a leader needs to show his or her sacrifice and commitment.

In the ’80s Infosys developed an application for a German client. Murthy noticed a single character error and informed the client immediately.

Murthy’s decision to not allow founders to continue with the company after the age of 65 set another standard for the company. This way, younger leadership at Infosys have a greater chance at reaching top positions.

Murthy prefers to be open and transparent in his dealings; this have given the company a great deal of credibility. To this end, Murthy often quips, “When in doubt, please disclose.”

3. Trust But Verify 

‘In God we trust, the rest must come with data’, is a favourite of Murthy’s maxims. When confronted with difficult decisions, he tends to rely on data.

Infosys almost wound up in 1990. Murthy did not want to sell the company. He asked co-founders if they wanted out and offered to buy their shares. All of them stuck together.

Infosys won a contract from Reebok in the early ’90s. Seeing the founders involvement, the software, was nick named ‘Dinesh, Murthy and Prahlad.’ Infy veterans still recall those days.

4. Trusting Your Support Pillar

He met his wife Sudha Murthy in Pune, where she was breaking the glass-ceiling; hired on merit at the TELCO plant as an engineer in the days when a car manufacturing plant shut the doors to women engineers. 

Narayana Murthy and six software professionals founded Infosys in 1981 with an initial capital fund of Rs 10,000, which was provided by his wife. 

Today Sudha Murthy – an acknowledged Engineering academician in her own right and a celebrated author – heads the Infosys Trust that works for the underprivileged.

According to wife Sudha, Murthy was always broke, he always owed her money.

“For three years, I maintained a book of Murthy’s debts to me. No, he never returned the money and I finally tore it up after our wedding. The amount was a little over Rs 4,000,” she said in her book.

5. Belief In Higher Education

Drawing on the remarkable Infosys story and the his experiences in a post-reform India, Narayana Murthy has penned an inspiring book called: Better India: A Better World. In it Murthy lays down the ground rules that must be followed if future generations are to inherit a truly progressive nation.

Murthy has said that learning and expanding our minds also helps us with our softer skills. “Higher education teaches you to be pluralistic and to be tolerant of other views. Higher education is all about opinions – your opinion vs my opinion. I would as much respect your opinion as my own, but I may not follow yours.”

Murthy has reposed his faith in teachers to mould the new generation and said the future of India depended on the teaching community more than any other category of professionals.

6. Encourage Merit, Reject Nepotism

Murthy told his wife that only one of them could be with the company. Murthy, along with other founders, said that none of their children would work for Infosys. This left no room for nepotism at Infosys. 

The Murthys have two children – son Rohan Murthy and daughter Akshata Murthy. Their son-in-law Rishi Sunak is the British MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer, the equivalent of a Finance Minister in India.

Murthy believes in the power of hiring not just the right people, but more so those who are smarter than oneself. That is where lies the chance to keep learning and innovating.

The India Inc boss says a good team is one that has “mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive set of skills and expertise.” And such a team is vital for any business to grow.

7. Never Give Up

A business leader will often face tough decisions, and may even find him/herself standing at a point where it feels like they can’t make it through. But it’s important to keep going.

Murthy learnt this from his own experience when in 1990 Infosys almost wound up, but he refused to give up. Adamant about not selling the company, he rather asked his co-founders if they wanted out and offered to buy their shares. But in the end, all of them stuck together, and the result of that stands in the form of the $40.6 billion company.

In 1994, when General Electric wanted to re-negotiate rates, Murthy said no to selling services any cheaper. This helped Infosys not to be overly dependent on any one client.

8. Stay Simple

The big man of Indian IT kept his personal life simple. He lives in a simple, middle class house and flies economy till date. Murthy has always been accessible to people around him.

Murthy is known to be frugal with money. Despite being one of the richest Indians, he leads a simple life. However, he does not cut corners on buying books or brushing up on literature.

9. Adversity can be an Opportunity

Analysts forecast that the Y2K would be catastrophe and most probably be an end of the world. They had also speculated that computers would fail and banking systems would collapse. In reality, none of that happened. In fact, Infosys made a great opportunity of the Y2K fears.

A major milestone in the corporate journey of Infosys was becoming among the very firsts to feature on the Nasdaq exchange. The scrip back then was so popular that it touched a market-capitalization of $ 100 million by 1999 or a year before the Y2K eve.

Infosys share prices surged from levels of Rs 8,100 (top 20 highest priced stock on Indian bourses) and has became a multi-bagger of sorts thanks to the several splits and offers initiated by the company.

The success of Murthy and Infosys has been hailed by Fortune Magazine which called the bespectacled IT man as the entrepreneur of our time. The Time Magazine called him the “father of the Indian IT sector” a keyword everyone at Nasscom (National Association of Software and Service Companies) members and even the International Software Community completely believe in.

10. Creating an atmosphere of Trust and Growth

In 2010, the Murthy’s donated $ 5.2 million USD to Harvard University Press for a project that aims to make India’s classical heritage available for generations to come. 

He also committed to offer Rs 10 crore to Akshaya Patra Foundation from personal funds towards the COVID-19 relief work to distribute essential grocery boxes to the migrant labourers and daily wage earners.

In a convocation address at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, Murthy had said that companies should concentrate on simple business rules as they were easy to understand, easy to follow and easy to communicate. 

“Above all, one cannot cheat people with simple rules,” he had said, adding that in order to draw and retain the best talent, he asked business leaders to respect their employees. 

“Create an environment of fast learning for them to compete in a knowledge economy, base each and every decision on merit, fairness and transparency, provide them with challenging work, create good career prospects for them and invest in world-class infrastructure to enhance their performance,” he had added.