The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : `Our dream is to gain more respect'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 15, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Our dream is to gain more respect'

Special Correspondent

N.R. Narayana Murthy

Bangalore: Twenty-five years after founding Infosys along with a small bunch of software professionals and making it a $2 billion revenue company, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor, says his dream is to make the software major gain greater respect from people.

"This is not a project. This is a continuum. Our dream is to become more and more respected. As the industry and society evolve, to become more and more respected we have to do more and more... bigger, better and newer things," he told presspersons here on Friday while announcing the annual results of Infosys during its 25th year in business.

This would mean hiring more people, garnering more business, higher revenues and margins.

"All of that will continue. In my view, reaching the age of 25 is when you become a strong young person with the energy and enthusiasm to conquer the world. Twenty-five is a wonderful age. It is an age when you have to dream of bigger things in life. That's what Infosys is doing," he stated.

Mr. Murthy said that he had no specific unfinished agenda. "Our eternal dream is to become more and more respected. Having completed 25 years, we have to be successful over the next 75 years so that we become 100," he noted.

Life has indeed come a long way for Mr. Murthy. "When I stepped off the train in Bulgaria in 1974 after becoming completely disillusioned with Communism and leftism, I realised that free enterprise and opportunities for all was the best model," he reminisced.

Referring to the birth of Infosys, he said the promoters did not set any benchmarks in terms of revenues, profits, market capitalisation and stock price.

Instead, we decided to seek the respect of our customers, investors and vendor partners.

"Infosys today stands as a shining example of all the good that has come out of the economic reforms unleashed by the former Finance Minister and the present Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. We raised the enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs in the country, raised the level of corporate governance and demonstrated that it was possible to be headquartered in Bangalore and compete with the best global corporations," he said while tracking the evolution of Infosys that now employs in excess of 52,000 people.

"These 25 years have been a wonderful journey, intense, passionate, hectic and rewarding," he noted.

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