Sucheta Dalal :A poor economy not an excuse for lay-offs: Narayana Murthy
Sucheta Dalal

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A poor economy not an excuse for lay-offs: Narayana Murthy  

November 27, 2009

 

Layoffs are an inevitable aspect of the corporate world, especially in a recession. But a poor economy should not be an excuse to cut jobs, a top industry official has said.
"In today's economic downturn, the challenge lies in having the courage to set an example that responsible profitability is a realistic achievement, and by using data to demonstrate that it is possible to preserve jobs in an economic downturn while innovating to increase profits, productivity and efficiency," Infosys Technologies' chief mentor, NR Narayana Murthy, told reporters on the sidelines of an industry meet in Mumbai.
 
It is simply too risky to pour money into projects or assets that may or may not yield the desired results. Therefore, from the perspective of resource management, there is a compelling case to be made for creative thinking and innovation to create new productivity and efficiency solutions from existing resources, Mr Murthy said.
"The other imperative of Indian companies is to improve the lives of the largest number of Indians because that is how you can make this a better society," he said.
 
"Indian companies must embrace fairness, transparency and accountability to their stakeholders-customers, employees, investors, vendor-partners, the government of the land and society," Mr Murthy said.
 
Rather than relying on the standard solution of cutting jobs which is at best a stop-gap measure to temporarily improve numbers, "we should encourage employees at every level to contribute their ideas to generate sustainable, genuine improvements in productivity, efficiency and profits," the Infosys founder said.
 
Speaking about reducing usage of sub-contractors, Mr Murthy told PTI, "We found during our reviews that a large proportion of client work had been outsourced to sub-contractors. In such cases, we decided to reduce the usage of sub-contractors and use our (own) facility."
 
The company has also taken a new concept 'more from the same', which will scrutinise budgets and look after areas where previously unnoticed expenses could be eliminated, he said.
Infosys believes that this new concept will benefit the company, its shareholders and its employees.
-Yogesh Sapkale [email protected]

-- Sucheta Dalal