An Infosys kind of day....

Today started with an interesting lecture from Dr. L Krishnan, a managing director from Taegu Tec. Taegu Tec is a multinational company that is part of The IMC (International Metalworking Companies) Group of Companies, whose primary business is cutting tools. The tools they make are Tungsten Carbide Based and Ceramic Cutting Tools (my grandpa would be interested in this). Interestingly enough 80% of the company is owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Dr. L Krishnan told us a very interesting story how the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet, acquired some of Taegu Tec. He wrote a letter to the company because he thought it was well-run. He never even visited the company and invested over $4 billion in it. Later, he said the reason he didn’t want to visit it before investing in it was because he would have probably ended up investing more in it.

In addition, Dr. L Krishnan said that at the moment, they are not outsourcing to China because they first want to fulfill local needs. 2/3 of products are produced locally, and 1/3 are produced in Korea. He also said that in the past 3 or 4 years, manufacturing companies have starting taking a global position and they are realizing the importance of global competition. Finally, I thought the most interesting point he made was how the youth’s confidence level in India is much higher than previous generations, and they are much more willing to take risks and are more independent. He didn’t go into any detail why it is like this, but it made me reflect on Being Indian to find this out. In the book, in regards to the emergence of India has a world power in Information technology, Varma states “The right educational degree, like a career in politics, is now recognized as a passport to fast-track upward mobility. The involvement of young Indians in the infotech revolution must be seen in this context. Indian software professionals are in demand globally”(11). I think this is the reason why the youths are showing more confidence and taking more risks because they have more leverage than previous generations in India. There wasn’t the global demand for Indian manpower in the past. The youths are realizing that they are in demand and because of this they are willing to take more risks to better their careers.

Continuing with our theme of the importance of Information Technology in India, we visited one of India’s largest IT company: Infosys Technologies Ltd. As expected, the site was absolutely amazing. It looked like a resort/island/country club/etc. Rather than describe every detail, I attached some pictures below. The company’s headquarter is in Bangalore. But, we went to the campus in Mysore, which is the world’s biggest training center. The new employees stay there from anywhere between 12-18 weeks. The man who spoke to us said that once they leave, they have what’s equivalent to a Bachelors degree in computer science. He said the reason they have this training center is because in school you just learn about it, whereas in the work world you need to know how to do it. In his opinion, he said only 10% of the new employees they get there would be able to bypass the training center, which he said shows how schools are not teaching some of the essentials that work professionals need to have (ex. Soft skills). Also he touched on the flat world and Infosys’s take on it. On their website they say “Infosys defines, designs and delivers technology-enabled business solutions that help global 2000 companies win in a flat world”. They even mention employees need to “think flat”. I think this is part of the reason the company is as successful as it is because they have been pro-active on changing their business mindset. The key is addressing the challenges and opportunities of a flat world, and Infosys has definitely done this. They even devoted a whole section on the flat world on their website. With offices in 23 countries, Infosys has definitely made a name for themselves globally.