Vishal Sikka quits as Infosys CEO: Hits and misses of his 3-year journey

Vishal Sikka on Friday resigned as the chief executive (CEO) and managing director (MD) of Infosys Technologies, India’s second-largest software services company. While the board of Infosys accepted the resignation of Sikka with immediate effect and appointed U B Pravin Rao as the interim CEO & MD, Sikka has been appointed the executive vice-chairman of the company.

In a BSE filing, Infosys said Sikka reiterated his belief in the great potential of Infosys, but cited among his reasons to leave a continuous stream of "distractions and disruptions over the recent months and quarters, increasingly personal and negative as of late, as preventing management's ability to accelerate the Company's transformation”.

When Sikka had taken over as the CEO & MD of Infosys three years ago, Sikka was prescient in forecasting that automation would take away jobs and clients would shift their investment dollars to newer digital technologies.

The shift, in fact, has been faster and there is pressure on clients spending on traditional services,which Infosys and its peers such as TCS and Wipro earn four-fifths of their dollar revenue from. To address this,Sikka visualised a software plus services model — using platforms to deliver services to bring in more efficiency and reduce dependency on people.

He had set a goal of more than doubling Infosys' revenues to $20 billion, with margins of 30 per cent and employee productivity of $80,000.