New Spirit in India Under PM Modi: Infosys Chief Vishal Sikka

Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka spoke to NDTV's Dr Prannoy Roy on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum meeting at Davos. Mr Sikka sees a new spirit in India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "That's the key ingredient," he said.

Here's an edited transcript of the interview:

Question: Your predecessors (at Infosys) - Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani - are perhaps two of the greatest Indians ever known. They made us prouder about India. They revived our confidence. It's a tough act to follow, right?

Answer: It is. But they have been great teachers. Here in Davos I'll share a story of what happened. I was sitting next to a leader from Singapore and he told me when he saw who I was he aside that Mr Murthy had once given them advice on business continuity and they adopted that immediately. It became a huge success for Singapore and that he was really thankful to Mr Murthy for doing that.

Question: You mean Infosys gives free advice?

Answer: It was really amazing that in a way in a deeply heartfelt warm way he remembered that act of Mr Murthy from ten-twelve years ago and what that meant to the country and I was just thinking.

Question: Did you ever ring him up and ask him for advice?

Question: I immediately wrote to him after that . And he said of course that George was one of the smartest people he ever met.

Question: Because I know both Nandan and Murthy give a lot of advice to a lot of people...

Answer: Just last week I visited all the remaining DCs (delivery centres) that I had not visited. With my family I went around seven cities in seven days in India. My own little 'Bharat Dharshan', and I visited all the remaining ones and now I have been to all the DCs. It is without comparison what they have done and you know the infrastructure that has been built, the incredible reputation that they have built. So I see that as a responsibility that I carry - a custodian of this incredible institution.

Question: Incredible ethics, incredible brilliance. The combination is pretty unusual in India. Infosys has worked globally and proved it's brilliance globally. But it's 'Make in India' for abroad. What about India itself, making for India in India because India needs it a lot?

Answer: India does need it a lot. And we have historically known that India is a very small market. I met with the Prime Minister the week before last... Or was it last week? I don't remember.

Question: Timelessness is your forte, right?

Answer: That is a good one. I think that there is a lot that we can do now. An amazing energy in India and also a lot off opportunity in many sectors... So there's commercial work to be done and we are doing that and we're starting to become very focused on some of the areas of growth within India. But beyond that as a contribution that we make, there is a tremendous expertise we at Infosys have and in the IT industry broadly and through the peer companies like TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) and Wipro and other companies. That we can do a lot more in India. I think in areas where there isn't an obvious commercial benefit, the right approach us what we are following is to establish exemplary projects that we can do as a part of corporate social responsibility. To set up an example. So that's what we are doing. I offered to the Prime Minister that we do with Mysore. Because Mysore is a great little, our campus in Mysore is a spiritual center for us at Infosys. You have seen it. It is an amazing place. So we are going to open that up as a smart city and make that available to...

Question: ...so people can see what can be done at low cost. For example, the government still has the old files which we tie up. Can the government go paperless? Can IT be used for greater security with CCTV cameras and automatic movement checking etc.?

Answer: All these are areas where we can contribute to- better health, better education, better safety, more cleanliness. Infosys campus is exemplary in how green and beautiful they are.

Question: Can that be scaled up to India and how? Should the government invest in something?

Answer: You know I'll tell you one thing. I see great CEOs here at Davos, many Indian leaders of great companies of the world. Yes it can be done. It must be done. What I have learnt in my life is that to do something amazing you basically need three things. Do we have the imagination for it? Do we have the knowledge for what it takes to do it? But most importantly do we have the conviction to do it? Does the country as a whole have the conviction? I see that. I see a new spirit in India under the Prime Minister's leadership. That is the key ingredient.

Question: You did promise when you met the Prime Minister $250 million to inject into new and young entrepreneurs which is so fantastic in India. Give us more details. What kind of thing are you looking at?

Answer: Fifteen hundred crores, but you have to earn it. The key is we have our educational system which has brought us to this point has primarily focused on problem solving. And on doing things we learn things. Not so much on problem finding. Being an entrepreneur is fundamentally about identifying what is wrong with the world around us. What can be better? That spirit is now slowly waking up in India. I was in Hyderabad last week and I met eight start-up companies. What we wanted to do with this fund was to encourage start-up companies to go out there and try their ideas. Invest in them, participate in their success obviously. But also advise them and work with them on engineering, scaling up their engineering on go to markets to bigger customers. I read somewhere that Indian start-up companies are struggling to achieve scale and don't have a great infrastructure. So we wanted to work on that. And that is an area we want to contribute to.

Question: Are you an entrepreneur because you've tried that or are you more of a leader manager?

Answer: Entrepreneur for sure. I am running a hundred and seventy thousand person start-up company.

Question: What makes you tick?

Answer: Passion for helping improve things. That is something...

Question: Not just profits?

Answer: No for sure. Life is too short for that.

Question: Now you've come to India and are actually working here. Three words to describe India?

Answer: Three words to describe India. It's beautiful, very deep. We have a very deep society. Very noisy, chaotic. I would say chaotic not noisy.

Question: Anarchic?

Answer: Not anarchic. You make order in the country, but that order is not uniform across society. So that's why it comes across as chaos.

Question: But this kind of democracy. All these youngsters like you. The first thing you question everything. So it generates creativity. So is that democracy is helping the IT sector the way people question and are creative?

Answer: I think that being creative, it is necessary to be constructive while we are being creative not destructive. To improve things. A curiosity and asking questions. It is not to become rebels and anarchists. To really improve things.

Question: What is the biggest strength and biggest challenge for Infosys?

Answer: Biggest strength is our ability to educate at a massive scale. Our culture of learning. Mr Murthy used to call it learnability. So our culture of learning is our biggest strength and is the heart of our company. The biggest challenge is this ability to constructively become creative and asking questions. To be pervasively dissatisfied and yet not abandon our Indian humility in doing that. To look at the world around us and the projects we do for clients and ask ourselves what can we do better here. What is it that we know to be wrong or that can be improved. That's a very significant cultural shift, not only in Infosys, but all the companies at large.

Question: One of the areas that is taking off is e-commerce. Flipkart, Snapdeal and other companies. Many of them have given examples of how this has encouraged entrepreneurs. The other side of it is that the retailers are saying: 'Oh god what's happening to us.' Is it a good thing or bad thing?

Answer: Oh it is an awesome thing. I think that when we think about e-commerce as coming at the expense of physical, I think we're missing the point. My sense is that retail and physical retail will be augmented and amplified by the digital. Not replaced by it.

Question: In fact a shop can use that market place as an extra reach to the country.

Answer: I mean when you look inside a smartphone or a computer, we are looking at a tiny screen. But when we are inside a store we are in a much more immersive environment. So if we can bring digital to the store as we are starting to do with many client and this is one of the areas where I am really excited about. We are working with some of the world's biggest retailers. In thinking about their storefronts in new ways

Question: ...and giving them a bigger reach? So is it here to stay or like the 2000 bubble?

Answer: No it is inevitable that many parts of commerce supply chain will become digital. It is already becoming digital. And only the necessary things, immersive things. All our sense needs to be engaged. Even that can be amplified digitally. So it is an inevitable march of technology.

Question: It's like when computers first came in, everyone said nothing is going to happen. You might as well go with the flow and encourage it. Will India ever have an Alibaba - a $250-billion company?

Answer: I think that we have a... I always tell this to employees at Infosys that one of the great quotes that Steve Jobs used to have was: 'The important thing in life is to realise that everything around us was built by people who were no superior to us. Therefore we can do the same thing.'

Question: So it could happen in India as long as we have the environment for it?

Answer: Jack was here. I ran into him yesterday (Wednesday) and he is an incredible entrepreneur.

Question: Is it $280 billion or $300 billion?

Answer: I don't know and they haven't even opened up the payments and the logistics work they have been doing.

Question: Sentiment in outsourcing - better now or worse?

Answer: I think it's become very diffused. The 'black and white' notion of outsourcing is not the case anymore. There are many teams, multi-location teams.

Question: So it's not like five years ago. It's not negative?

Answer: No because they have their own centers in off shore locations. In India, in the Philippines.

Question: And in America? You've been hiring in America?

Answer: Absolutely. Rural parts of America. We hire in America so American companies are doing work in rural parts of America and so on. So that flattening that Nandan and Tom Friedman were talking about is happening in a whole different way. Because of collaborative technology and new communication technology.

Question: So if you weren't in software what would you do in life?

Answer: You said I was a philosopher! If I wasn't in software I always had a proclivity towards mathematics and physics. Some science... scientist at heart.

Question: What keeps you awake at night?

Answer: I think there are 6 million people in colleges in India and 7 million in China. If you look at the world in front of us, I studied artificial intelligence at Stanford and automation and the future of people is one of those things. I would love to see a reality where Infosys leads, and everyone beyond Infosys has an opportunity to bring their creativity to play to bring their best to the work that they do.

Question: How does that keep you awake?

Answer: The fact that this might not happen. That what are the things that might prevent. it is a very difficult challenge to bring opportunity to everyone. People always worry that automation will take away my job then what do I do. I am deeply convinced that doesn't have to be the case. Of you look all the way back to the Industrial revolution, technology always empowers people. But will we be able to opportunity to everyone. That uniformity, that widespread availability and opportunity to everyone. the culture change that needs to happen. that is something I worry about. I don't worry so much about the oil prices if that's what you mean.