MANAGEMENT

CASE Infosys Technologies Ltd.:

describes a real-life situation
faced, a decision or action Growing Share of a Customer’s
taken by an individual
manager or by an
organization at the strategic, Business
functional or operational
levels
James A Narus and DVR Seshadri

I
“ n summary, we encourage Infosys to compete for the customization, installation,
and maintenance of a JAVA-based Ariba® e-procurement system here at Prairie
Four Square (PFS) Insurance,” stated the Chief Information Officer (CIO), PFS,
Robert Peters. “As part of this project, you would work not only with our information
technology (IT) group on internal system tasks but also with our Purchasing De-
partment to select and certify vendors, standardize all product codes and order
processing procedures, and integrate certified vendors’ billing processes with our
accounts payable systems. Be aware that you will be competing head-to-head with
two leading IT consulting firms; so, you will have to demonstrate that you can handle
all aspects of the project in a superior manner. Furthermore, given our CEO’s drive
to cut costs significantly, I urge you to ‘sharpen your pencils’ before you quote a
price on the project. Let’s schedule your project proposal presentation for three weeks
from today.”
Thus concluded a one-hour briefing that the CIO, Peters, and his colleague, the
PFS Purchasing Vice President, Kay Bryan, had given to the Infosys Engagement
Manager, Rahul Dev, and the Account Manager, Jaspal Singh. During that briefing,
Peters and Bryan had outlined plans to move all company acquisitions of products
and services online and provided operational details on how they would like to see
the system function. As Rahul and Jaspal walked down the main corridor of PFS’
Dallas headquarters building and towards the street, they nodded to each other in
delight over the unexpected opportunity that had just presented itself. “Although
Infosys has successfully increased the number of major IT projects it conducts for
PFS to 65, we have only managed to capture around US $ 30 million (i.e., Rs. 1.38
billion Indian rupees) in annual business out of their annual IT total spend of $1
billion (Rs. 46 billion) even though we could ideally handle up to 45 per cent of that
KEY WORDS
total spend. Moreover, most of the projects that we have undertaken have been low
Infosys Business Model
value-added, price-sensitive business. This project requires an end-to-end solution.
Insurance If we win it and deliver a high quality solution, we will be in an advantageous position
Ariba e-Procurement to gain a greater share of their more profitable, high value-added business. We must
System put together a convincing case for employing Infosys,” Rahul insisted.
Account Management
Team COMPANY BACKGROUND
Offshore Outsourcing With an annual sales of over Rs. 139 billion ($2979 million) and net profits exceeding

VIKALPA • VOLUME 32 • NO 2 • APRIL - JUNE 2007 83

Rs. 24 billion ($844 million) for the year ending March new business formation, offered free or low-cost access
31, 2007, Infosys Technologies Ltd. provides a full range to infrastructure (e.g., buildings and data transmission
of IT and consulting services including the development, lines), and granted frequent ‘tax holidays.’ Simultane-
customization, reengineering, and maintenance of per- ously, General Electric (GE) made global outsourcing
sonal and network computing, mainframe, and Internet- respectable and allayed fears about potential risks by
based information systems. Based in Bangalore, India, moving significant business to Indian subcontractors.
Infosys employs over 72,000 people (Infoscions in com- Other major international corporations quickly followed
pany parlance) worldwide, sustains 16 development cen- suit. To tap the large pool of competent and IT-savvy
tres (spread over 8 cities) in India and 9 global devel- professionals in India, Infosys issued lucrative stock
opment centres (spread across USA, Canada, UK, and option plans for all employees. Soon, the most talented
Japan), and operates 41 marketing offices across the programmers and managers from across India were
globe. Its sprawling Infosys City campus in Bangalore queuing up for a chance to work for Infosys.
includes modern office buildings, state-of-the-art com- The firm has experienced four phases in its devel-
puter facilities, training classrooms, a gymnasium and opment, each entailing a distinct market offering and
sauna, a golf course, a tennis court, and a power gen- value proposition. In its first decade, Infosys relied on
eration system. The firm also maintains a business con- an offshore outsourcing model. Playing the ‘global la-
tinuity and disaster recovery facility on the island of bour arbitrage’ game, Infosys benefited from the avail-
Mauritius. ability of low-cost and world-class IT professionals in
Often referred to as the ‘Microsoft of India,’ Infosys India. As a rule of thumb, the salary of a software
had a humble beginning in July, 1981. Reportedly, Chair- engineer in India could be 40 per cent to 50 per cent lower
man Narayana Murthy and six entrepreneurial friends than a comparable individual in the US or Europe. This
borrowed $250 from their wives to form the company resource cost advantage enabled Infosys to bid on and
(see Exhibit 1). While doing so, they made a profound win lucrative contracts for labour-intensive, low value-
statement—“Wealth could be created ethically and added ‘back-office’ work such as data entry, transaction
honestly.” Furthermore, they wanted to build an organi- processing and analysis, and customer billing and ac-
zation where advancement was based on merit. At that counts payable monitoring. In the early 1990s, the Infosys
point of time, their vision was seen as nothing short of business model opportunistically evolved to focus on
revolutionary in that India was not seen as the home of maintenance contracts for legacy systems. Much of this
high-tech industries; state-run rather than privately held work entailed preventative and corrective software
enterprises were the norm; corruption was common- programming in the anticipation of year two thousand
place in Indian business dealings; and people often got (Y2K) anomalies. Although these projects allowed Infosys
ahead because of who they knew or were related to to gain a reputation for its programming capabilities, the
rather than what they were capable of accomplishing. work was not seen as glamorous and ground-breaking
Over the years, the seven founders followed their by those associated with emerging technologies and
principles not only making Infosys one of the most systems such as the Internet.
admired companies in India but also gaining almost Beginning in the late 1990s, Infosys redirected its
legendary status in the community. Although they are priorities away from selling discrete maintenance projects
multimillionaires, the founders have lived modest lives. and toward the marketing of end-to-end solutions and
For example, they are routinely seen taking public tran- in particular those involving consultative services such
sit, participating in local events, and taking their chil- as design, customization, business process reengineering,
dren to public schools. Furthermore, they have devoted and installation. By doing so, Infosys executives be-
time and effort to improving social welfare in India and lieved that they could better create and share customer
have contributed considerable funds to charities. value. To begin with, internal research has found that
During the 1980s, several factors converged to make over 60 per cent of the IT costs are locked-in during the
Infosys wildly successful. The Indian government de- period from design to installation. Managers have also
cided to target IT as the source of significant economic come to realize that involvement during the initial stages
development. To spur such development, the govern- of the life cycle of a system acquaints Infosys personnel
ment eliminated significant ‘red tape’ associated with with software logic, architecture, and codes. This saves

84 INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES LTD.

significant costs over engaging a client during the tation throughout the South West for offering fair prices,
maintenance phase in that Infosys personnel do not have personalized and friendly service, and prompt and
to spend days if not weeks gaining a clear understanding equitable resolution of all claims. In particular, ordinary
of how the system is meant to work. From a revenue ranchers and farmers believed that in times of crisis, PFS
and profit standpoint, Infosys managers have also dis- and its representatives were among the best friends you
covered that although the design-related phases only could have on your side. As a result, PFS grew to become
account for 20 per cent of the potential revenues from one of the largest insurance companies in the South West
an account, they drive the remaining 80 per cent of the and later in the Mid West. A series of acquisitions and
future revenues from that account. Lastly, and perhaps mergers during the late 1900s expanded the PFS reach
most importantly, selling end-to-end solutions enables to the East and West Coasts. Today, the PFS sales exceed
Infosys to grow by gaining greater share of a customer’s $27 billion (Rs. 1.2 trillion). It serves over 50 million
business. This is an essential pathway to growth for individual, institutional, and corporate customers in the
Infosys in that over 80 per cent of its revenues come from US.
the existing and loyal customers. PFS maintains extensive and mission critical IT
In recent years, the Infosys business model has systems across the US. As an insurance company, it
evolved again, this time emphasizing greater focus on must process, analyse, and act upon tremendous amounts
the specific industries. This metamorphosis can be at- of diverse data on an ongoing basis. These data include:
tributed to the increasing diversity of the IT system actuarial tables, billings, claim requests and payments,
requirements and the different rates of IT spending customer profiles and addresses, government rules and
growth across industries. Rather than pursuing all regulations, healthcare provider identification, invest-
potential clients with uniform market offerings, Infosys ments, treatment, and payment codes, and vendor in-
now seeks business domain excellence. This entails formation. To handle this data, PFS relies on an amalgam
offering highly customized end-to-end solutions to a of IT technologies – mainframes for batch processing,
limited number of potentially high-profit market seg- office computers for online analyses, and network sys-
ments that have ‘mission critical’ IT applications. Among tems that utilized the Internet and several private
the targeted industries are insurance, health care, and extranets. To protect proprietary information, PFS policy
retailing. had long required that most of this work be done in-
ternally. Although PFS occasionally relied on the serv-
PRAIRIE FOUR SQUARE INSURANCE ices of the top IT consulting firms to complete the short-
Prairie Four Square (PFS) Insurance is one of the leading term and focused strategic projects, an overwhelming
providers of individual life, group life, medical and majority of its IT work has been done in-house. As a
dental, and long-term care and disability insurance in consequence, the firm’s IT infrastructure, staffing, and
the US. In 1982, Stephen Neely founded PFS in Dallas, costs ballooned during the 1980s and 1990s.
TX, to serve the overlooked ranchers, farmers, and Relentless pressure from the Wall Street to cut costs
shopkeepers in North Texas. As a symbol for his fledg- dramatically and the highly publicized successes of GE,
ling company, Neely selected the Prairie Four Square — prompted the PFS senior management to outsource off-
a modest though resilient housing design—that was shore portions of its IT maintenance activities. Five
common in Texas at that time. This style of home is seen years ago, they had selected Infosys as the sole supplier
as the representative of the South West and the govern- in an outsourcing pilot test, awarding it three mainte-
ment has designated many of these homes that have nance contracts. Pleased with Infosys’ performance, the
survived from the mid-1880s as national historic land- PFS has outsourced more and more projects to them over
marks. Neely believed that PFS captured the spirit of the years. Today, Infosys has over 65 major contracts
his enterprise: “To provide reasonably priced, reliable, with PFS. And, the scope of these projects is far broader
long-term shelter, and security for families.” An etching than the original three. Not only do Infosys people handle
of a well-known PFS from the Dallas area serves as the the routine maintenance tasks such as cleansing cor-
logo of the company and appears on all of its stationery, rupted data, correcting software flaws, and running
brochures, and advertising. programme and systems tests, they also complete higher
Neely and his partners quickly established a repu- value maintenance-related work such as application

VIKALPA • VOLUME 32 • NO 2 • APRIL - JUNE 2007 85

development, business process reengineering, installa- that an overhaul of the PFS purchasing practices and
tion of certain packaged solutions, programme manage- procedures would be needed. “This is as much a con-
ment, and technology consulting. sulting project as an IT project,” Kay Bryan said, allud-
Although Infosys remains the sole supplier of ing to the old Hammer and Champy adage, ‘If you
outsourced IT maintenance work to the PFS, its status automate a bad process, you end up with a faster bad
has functioned as ‘golden handcuffs,’ limiting the type process.’ We will have to address a series of critical
of projects PFS awards. Overall, the PFS has favoured issues before we begin to order products and services
a ‘best of breed’ approach to IT systems work awarding online. Among our key concerns are the following:
contracts to those firms seen as the most competent in • How should purchasing processes and practices be
the specific categories (e.g., knowledge management, standardized across all company units?
systems architecture, maintenance). For example, when • How could purchase orders be aggregated across
it comes to strategic and conceptual projects (e.g., IT all company units to increase company leverage in
system design, integration of IT and telecommunica- price negotiations?
tions systems, role of IT within the organization), senior • How can PFS standardize the process of specify- ing
managers have long favoured the top consulting firms requests for quotes (RFQs) and placing orders?
— Accenture, EDS, and IBM Global Services. PFS’ ra- • How can the Ariba e-procurement system be inte-
tionale for the approach is twofold. First, it ensures that grated with the reengineered purchasing process?
work goes to the one supplier most able to complete it. • Which vendors should be certified for inclusion in
Second, it keeps any one vendor from gaining too much the e-procurement system? Which criteria should
leverage over the PFS because they are the only ones be used for selection? How could the PFS integrate
who know how the entire IT system works. Clearly, the and synchronize its purchasing systems with order
PFS senior management saw Infosys as an outstanding processing procedures at all of the certified vendor
vendor for the ‘offshore outsourcing of IT maintenance firms?
projects.’ • Should the PFS use electronic funds transfers to pay
for orders?
PFS e-Procurement System Project
The strategic nature of the project led Peters and
The PFS senior management strongly advocated using Bryan to initially conclude that the PFS would need to
IT wherever possible to increase the level of customer call on the services of a top IT consulting firm. Contact-
service and to lower the operating costs. Within the past ing the leading consulting firms about the project, Peters
few months, a company ‘white paper’ had indicated that and Bryan observed that none of them seemed to possess
the purchasing department was one area where IT could strong capabilities and competencies in all aspects re-
make significant contributions in lowering operating quired for an end-to-end e-procurement solution. Nor-
costs. Traditionally, purchasing had been decentralized mally, that finding would have reinforced the PFS’ best-
at the PFS with each group having the authority to of-breed approach to vendor selection. However, given
acquire supplies, equipment, and services as it saw fit. the required integration both within the PFS internal
This resulted in a confusing array of contradictory and groups and across outside suppliers, Peters and Bryan
Byzantine purchasing practices across the firm. Each believed that a pilot project where one firm received the
year, the company bought over 10,000 different items entire contract was in order. If the pilot proved to be
from some 1,200 suppliers. According to cost analysts successful, PFS might award more sole sourcing end-to-
in the ‘white paper,’ the average cost to process an order end IT projects in the future.
at the PFS was $78. This far exceeded the industry average In short order, Peters and Bryan had narrowed
of $45 per order. To remedy the situation, the ‘white candidates down to two prospective vendors — Excalibur
paper’ recommended that the PFS reduce its supplier and Merrimac Consulting. Excalibur Consulting, based
base to some 300 firms and implement an e-procurement in Chicago, and Merrimac Consulting, based in Fairfax
system featuring JAVA-based Ariba software. Senior County, Virginia, are among the top 15 consulting firms
managers called upon CIO Peters and the Vice President in the world. Pundits agree that they are the leading
Bryan to follow up on these recommendations. operations consulting firms, particularly when it comes
Reviewing the situation, Peters and Bryan realized to applying IT to issues such as enterprise requirement

86 INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES LTD.

planning (ERP), process engineering, logistics, and portion of the project. I wonder which of these firms
purchasing. In general, both consultancies prefer to will provide the most compelling case that they can
work on the ‘grand strategy’ and highly conceptual ‘big ‘stretch’ their competencies and capabilities to deliver
picture’ projects. Historically, their weakness has been an end-to-end solution that meets our requirements?”
in the area of ongoing IT systems maintenance. As most
Demonstrating and Documenting Capabilities1
of their people are based in the US, their labour rates
have been non-competitive. Moreover, they had a ten- On the way back to Infosys offices, Rahul and Jaspal
dency to avoid low value and low profit projects such brainstormed ideas for their presentation to PFS while
as maintenance and therefore did not have requisite relating their career experiences. It was a typical hot
expertise. “As I understand it,” Peters opined, “Both summer day in Dallas. Rahul, a second generation
firms have just opened large facilities in the Bangalore American from the Bay Area in California, was some-
area. My guess is that they are doing so to get a piece what fatigued and dehydrated from the weeklong 95°F
of the ‘offshore IT-system maintenance outsourcing plus (35°C) temperature. Although he routinely attend-
business.’ To date, PFS has not employed either firm for ed the Indian association meetings to maintain his cultural
any large-scale or long-term IT projects. If we ask them identity, and had travelled to India many times, Rahul
for a proposal on the e-procurement system project, I dressed, spoke, and acted like a typical Californian. He
wonder if they would submit a low-ball price quote on had received his B.S. in Computer Science from the
an end-to-end solution in order to get a foot in the door University of California, Berkeley and his MBA with a
of our maintenance work.” major concentration in Finance from the Stanford Uni-
“Perhaps we should ask Infosys to prepare a pro- versity. Following graduation, Rahul worked for Excal-
posal on this project as well,” Peters stated. “Five years ibur Consulting in Chicago for 10 years. Five years ago,
ago, they were an unknown commodity to us and we he joined Infosys, working initially out of the Boston
gave them a chance. Over these years, their work has office. While he had not yet adjusted to the Dallas weather,
exceeded our expectations both in terms of quality and he welcomed his new location because it afforded him
costs. More importantly, they may have a big advantage the opportunity to closely follow his favourite pastime,
over Excalibur and Merrimac – Infosys’ maintenance Dallas Mavericks basketball.
work has exposed their people to all aspects of our IT Jaspal, a Sikh from Patiala, India, was clearly in his
system as well as how we do business. As a result, they element, even though he sported a turban, jacket and
will be farther down the ‘learning curve’ at the beginning a tie, on such a hot day. “I find the heat invigorating,”
of the project. That might translate into better work more Jaspal told Rahul, “It makes me want to take on tough
quickly which will yield significant cost savings for PFS. projects.” Jaspal too had had an interesting set of career
I have also read recently in the Wall Street Journal and experiences. He had received his B.E. in Electronics and
The Financial Times of London, that Infosys has been Communications Engineering from the University of
hiring well-seasoned people from the top consulting Punjab. An entrepreneur at heart, Jaspal started and
firms as well as from the top MBA programmes world- operated a successful value-added reseller (VAR) busi-
wide. Also, they appear to be bolstering their consulting ness in Mumbai for seven years. Three years ago,
resources and in-house training. My guess is that they opportunities to sell his business at a profit and join
are trying to secure higher value added and profit Infosys presented themselves simultaneously and he
business.” The two agreed to ask Infosys to submit a took advantage of them. After several months of train-
proposal for the project. ing, Jaspal accepted an international assignment in Dallas.
“This should be an interesting acquisitions exer- This was his first experience of living outside of India
cise,” Kay Bryan reflected. “Excalibur and Merrimac and he worked hard to adjust to his new environment.
have an outstanding reputation for operations consult- Fortunately, Jaspal’s new wife and the small Sikh com-
ing. They will have to demonstrate that they can deliver munity in Dallas made him feel at home and encouraged
the maintenance portion of an end-to-end solution. him while enabling him to practice his religion and
Infosys, on the other hand, clearly does outstanding customs. On bright, Sunday mornings, Jaspal was found
maintenance work. They will have to show that they
1
can handle the strategic and conceptual consulting Infoscion manager names, titles, and backgrounds described here have been
disguised for proprietary reasons.

VIKALPA • VOLUME 32 • NO 2 • APRIL - JUNE 2007 87

playing cricket with some of his Indian, Australian, and Programmer. This person is responsible for all technical
British colleagues in a park near his house in Dallas. aspects related to client IT systems. These four individ-
“In order to prepare a compelling case for Infosys, uals — Engagement Manager, Account Manager, Deliv-
we are going to have to assemble all available perform- ery Manager, and Senior Programmer — constitute the
ance metrics and case histories of our ongoing work at core of each strategic account team.
PFS,” Rahul reasoned. “In contrast to competing firms, Lalitha Krishnan is the Delivery Manager for PFS.
we have an advantage — the Infosys personnel dili- Lalitha did her graduation in Computer Sciences from
gently and rigorously gather, document, and analyse the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and her MBA
such data on an ongoing basis. As I see it, we will need from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. For
to do the following during our presentation. First, we over 15 years, she worked on IT system projects for Tata
will have to demonstrate to the PFS managers that Infosys Consultancy Services. During that period, she travelled
performance has exceeded their expectations. We can do extensively in Asia, Europe, and the US completing a
this by documenting not only quality of our efforts but wide variety of software implementation projects.
also the added value that Infosys has delivered. Second, Married to the Vice President of Marketing, Hindustan
we will have to provide evidence that Infosys can handle Levers Ltd., Lalitha is the mother of two young children.
all aspects of an end-to-end solution, and in particular, She has worked for Infosys for 10 years.
those that fall outside of our traditional IT system As the Delivery Manager, Lalitha is responsible for
maintenance activities. Third, we are going to have to over 500 programmers and technical people in Bangalore
present logical arguments that convince the PFS man- who are assigned to the PFS account. In addition, she
agers that the entire e-procurement system project should is almost in daily contact not only with her counterpart
go to a single vendor. Let us gather up the information Infoscions in Dallas, but also with the PFS IT managers.
we have at our disposal here in Dallas. Then, I would Lalitha has long maintained that she must always live
like to schedule a teleconference call with our PFS team in two cultures. A quick scan of her office in Bangalore
members in Bangalore. Working together, I am confident reveals the clash of cultures. A devout Hindu, Lalitha
that we can put together a winning case for Infosys.” has a framed illustration of Lord Balaji and a photograph
of her family on one side of her desk. Occasionally,
The PFS Account Team
during the day, she takes time to meditate and pray,
As Infosys thrives on highly collaborative relationships seeking enlightenment and peace of mind. And, on the
with loyal customer firms; its sales and marketing ef- other side of her desk, she has taped the red, white, and
forts, not surprisingly, are organized around strategic blue bumper sticker, “Don’t Mess with Texas.” On one
accounts. An Engagement Manager, whose office is of the walls of her office, Lalitha proudly displays a large
located in close proximity to the customer’s headquar- poster of Dallas Cowboys — the American football team.
ters, is responsible for all Infosys personnel and resourc- To help her relate to her counterparts at PFS, Infosys
es, both in India and the client’s country, that serve a constantly streams the local news headlines from Dallas
given customer firm. Assisting him or her in the client’s across her office computer. Before she starts work each
country is an Account Manager who coordinates ‘front morning, Lalitha also makes it a point to check up on
office tasks’ such as routine face-to-face client contact, the local Dallas events on DallasObserver.com. Lastly,
onsite technical support, contract negotiations, project to better communicate with the PFS managers and to
fulfillment, and trouble-shooting, among many others. better understand the American culture, Lalitha has
A staff of technical engineers and business consultants taken several courses at the Infosys Learning and De-
support both the Engagement Manager and the Account velopment (LnD) Centre.
Manager in the client’s country. For example, some 150 Ravikiran Gowda, a Senior Programmer, is Lalitha’s
Infoscions assist Rahul and Jaspal in serving PFS in the top assistant. In his late 20s, Ravi has his B.E. and M.S.
US. Back in Bangalore, a Delivery Manager supervises in Mechanical Engineering from Ramaiah College of
all ‘back office operations’ such as data processing and Engineering in Bangalore. Ravi is a prototypical ‘com-
analysis, research and analysis, programming concerns, puter nerd.’ He claims to always have within his reach,
and in-depth technical assistance, among many others. every state-of-the-art electronic device known to man
The Delivery Manager, in turn, draws upon a Senior including a mobile phone, a personal digital assistant,

88 INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES LTD.

a tablet computer, a multifunction electronic watch, evaluate our work on three dimensions – quality, time-
among many others. Ravi immerses himself perpetually liness, and reliability (Exhibit 2). There are two metrics
in computer codes, not only the current client software for each dimension. Each metric is an average across
but also the latest releases from the major software all projects. We provide these to PFS managers online
vendors. When he is not working on projects, Ravi often in the form of what we call a ‘CIO Dashboard.’ During
appears to be enraptured by an endless parade of video each of the past five years, Infosys has exceeded the PFS
games. targets by a wide margin,” Lalitha concluded.

Teleconference Call2 Reengineering project assignments. “One of our accom-

plishments at the PFS that I am particularly proud of
At 6:00 a.m. (6.00 hours) the next morning, Rahul ini- relates to how we redesigned five major maintenance
tiated a hastily arranged teleconference call with Jaspal projects,” Jaspal commented. “Beginning in year two of
in Dallas, and Lalitha and Ravi in Bangalore. They started our engagement at PFS, Infosys took charge of those
so early because Bangalore is 11 hours ahead of Dallas. projects. In the past years, PFS had employed 250 people
So, for Lalitha and Ravi, it was 5:00 p.m. (17.00 hours). to complete them. Each of those employees was assigned
The colleagues saw nothing unusual in this. In fact, the exclusively to one project. Once we learned the nature
dedicated Infoscions routinely put in long hours, extend- of project tasks, we began to move some of them to
ing the day both in the morning and evening to accom- Bangalore. In year three of our engagement at the PFS,
modate their counterparts on the other side of the globe. we had 75 people working on the projects in the US and
Following pleasantries and a review of the PFS 250 in India. At this point, we began to scrutinize the
business, they turned their attention to the prospective, manner in which these tasks were completed and to
Ariba e-Procurement System project. Each took a turn question whether the tasks could in fact be completed
offering arguments that would enable Rahul and Jaspal at the same quality levels using fewer people. We reen-
to demonstrate and document the case for awarding the gineered the processes for each project and assigned the
project to Infosys. remaining employees across several projects. Thus, in
Team support. Rahul opened the discussions announc- years four and five of our engagement at PFS, we have
ing that Infosys senior management would assist the PFS used 75 Infoscions in the US and 100 in Bangalore to
account management team by assigning a number of complete the redesigned tasks. The surplus 150 Info-
support personnel to the project. Among these individ- scions in Bangalore were transferred to other PFS projects
uals would include a Programme Manager, three busi- at ‘no extra charge’ to PFS. Given that the costs of a
ness analysts, a technical specialist on Ariba program- full-time equivalent (FTE)3 are $8,000 per month (Rs.
ming, a product specialist familiar with e-procurement 368,000) in the US and $3,200 per month (Rs. 147,200)
software, a development analyst, and a technical ana- in India, the resource reductions represent a significant
lyst. In addition, the Enterprise Solutions Group would benefit for PFS. Perhaps more importantly, it demon-
contribute a team skilled in executing the company’s strates that at Infosys, in contrast to many of our Indian
award winning ‘Package Implementation Methodolo- and Chinese competitors, improving employee produc-
gy.’ This would ensure that the Ariba e-procurement tivity rather than just gaining labour savings from moving
software is up and running in a flawless manner in short people offshore, is our key goal and value proposition!
order. Lastly, a technical specialist from Ariba would And, I can back up this claim by demonstrating that
assist during the sales presentation and implementation reengineering project processes and employee tasks are
phases of the project. However, Rahul sagely pointed the key competencies of the Infosys human resources
out that Ariba personnel would likely support the com- department.”
petition in a similar manner.
Overall quality of Infosys work. Lalitha carefully sum-
marized the Infosys performance over the past five years
3
A full-time equivalent (FTE) represents the number of hours a full-time
on its portfolio of PFS maintenance projects. “As you employee would be expected to work during a given period of time. It measures
can see from the chart in my last e-mail message, we the total amount of employee time required for a project taking into account
that some employees work on several projects at once. The costs of an
FTE estimate direct labor and other overhead charges required to support
2
While the performance and cost data presented here are representative, the work. Please note that all FTEs presented in this case have been disguised
they have been disguised for proprietary reasons. for proprietary reasons.

VIKALPA • VOLUME 32 • NO 2 • APRIL - JUNE 2007 89

Data corruption prevention subroutine. “PFS runs two and submit the required reports on time each month.”
major IT systems off a common database,” Rahul point- “Coincidentally, I ran across a new algorithm that
ed out. “One uses a mainframe computer to run millions addressed this very problem in a computer science
of routine data processing tasks in ‘batch fashion’ from journal. I was able to write a programme around this
11.00 p.m. (2300 hours) to 5.00 a.m. (500 hours). The algorithm for the PFS. With an additional nine hours in
second entails some 125 networked, personal computers hand, the PFS eliminated the likelihood that they would
(PCs) that the PFS employees use to complete a variety not meet their deadlines. In the process, Infosys saved
of tasks from 5:00 a.m. to 11.00 p.m. Prior to Infosys’ PFS eight hours of CPU time each month. With the
work at PFS, batch programmes occasionally ran later additional CPU time, they are able to complete another
than 5:00 a.m. When this happened, it would corrupt the 1,800 jobs the last night of each month. Although I
data being used from the central database and shutdown assume that these 1,800 jobs are value-adding in the
the online system, idling 125 PFS workers for at least sense that they either reduce company costs or increase
four hours. To remedy the problem, Infoscions wrote a revenues, I cannot attribute specific monetary amounts.”
subroutine that automatically shut down all batch pro- Reduction in disability claims reserves. “Two years ago,
grammes at 5:00 a.m.” we helped to reduce the cash reserves that PFS must have
“What cost savings did our efforts deliver to PFS? on hand at all times to pay disability claims by $14
To begin with, we reduced the average number of cor- million (Rs. 645 million),” Jaspal noted. “We accom-
ruption incidents per year from 24 to 0. Each time a plished this by streamlining and reengineering not only
corruption event occurred in the past, three program- the claims submission process but also the claims pay-
mers would spend an average of four hours apiece at ment process. As part of this redesign, we moved what
an FTE rate of $45 (Rs. 2,070) per hour reconstituting had traditionally been a manual process online. With
the data. These programmers would be assisted by a a more efficient process, PFS completed the related tasks
technical support person for one hour at an FTE rate of faster and more accurately. In accordance with insurance
$40 (Rs. 1,840) per hour. At PFS, 125 employees would regulations, PFS was allowed to reduce its cash reserves.
be idled for four hours at an FTE rate of $42 (Rs. 1,932) At a cost of capital at around 10 per cent, PFS achieved
per hour. Running programmes to reconstitute the significant savings. I think that this is a simple but
corrupted data would take about 15 seconds at a central persuasive anecdote in that it demonstrates that Infosys
processing unit (CPU) at a time rate of $ 0.39 (Rs. 18.0) can effectively reengineer the payment processes.
per second. More importantly, we demonstrated to PFS Obviously, this skill will be essential in the case of an
early on in the engagement that Infoscions had the ability e-procurement system.”
to diagnose problems and write subroutines to correct Benefits of sole sourcing. “PFS will reap significant
them,” Rahul asserted. benefits from sole sourcing the project to Infosys,” Rahul
Record comparison algorithm. “Along similar lines, I insisted. “Most importantly, by being involved from day
had an opportunity to write a critical algorithm for the one in the project, Infosys will be able to forgo the
PFS last year that improved the record comparison ‘knowledge transfer time’ required to bring program-
processing efficiency by 56 per cent and the processing mers up-to-speed on technical details of the system had
time by eight hours,” Ravi added. “On the last day of they entered at the maintenance stage. By our best
each month, PFS is required to complete a series of estimates, it would take five programmers around 12
‘compliance’ analyses on all of its customer accounts and weeks to master an Ariba e-procurement system that
report their findings to the Insurance Commissions of another vendor had installed and customized. As those
each state within which they operate. The analyses programmers would be based in Dallas, their FTE costs
match the type of insurance plan to fees charged as well would be $8,000 per month (Rs. 368,000). When we enter
as compare actual payments to customers versus plan the maintenance phase, Infosys would accrue additional
stipulations. If they fail to deliver the reports to each savings in that we would be in a far better position to
state commission by the first day of each new month, quickly track down the source of any software problems.
the states penalize PFS on an average by $360,000 (Rs. Of course, at this time it would be impossible to predict
16.5 million). My contacts at PFS tell me that there is what those problems might be and to assess a monetary
about a 1 per cent probability that they will not complete cost savings to their resolution.”

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Ongoing Ariba e-procurement projects. “According to PREPARING FOR THE PRESENTATION
my colleagues here in Bangalore,” Lalitha interjected, In the next few days after the teleconference call, Rahul
“Infosys has initiated three end-to-end Ariba e-procure- and Jaspal worked together with their cost analysts to
ment system projects within the year. Two of them are put together a proposal plus price quote for the PFS. To
for the retailers and one for a healthcare organization. meet Infosys profit requirements, they determined that
One retailer and the healthcare organization are located the cost-plus price of the implementation phase of the
in the US while the other retailer is in Europe. So, we project — purchasing process redesign, vendor selection
do have some limited experience with such work. Al- and training, package customizations, integration with
though it is too early to assess the outcomes of those PFS enterprise requirement planning (ERP) system,
projects, we do know that things have gone well so far. installation, and “burn-in” — should be $2 million (Rs.
And, in the case of the healthcare organization, we have 92 million). As for the maintenance portion of the end-
already been able to save them $100,000 (Rs. 4,600,000) to-end solution, the team estimated a price of $400,000
per year by switching the company’s ‘change order’ (Rs. 18.4 million) per year.4 “As all of this work will
procedures (i.e., the alteration of a previously processed have to be done in Dallas,” Rahul stated, “my guess is
order) from a manual to an online software-based sys- that our costs will be similar to those of the two IT
tem. However, I fully expect that PFS will question consulting firms competing for the business. As they
whether our experience in retail and healthcare is ap- have not done any major projects for the PFS in recent
plicable to the insurance industry. At the same time, years and are interested in demonstrating their newly
our two competitors will undoubtedly tout their many developed system maintenance capabilities, our com-
online procurement system design and implementation petitors may choose to price significantly below cost. I
projects and pronounce that purchasing-related consult- wonder if we should take an aggressive stance and cut
ing falls within the ‘sweet spot’ of their core competen- our price significantly below our normal cost-plus fee.”
cies and capabilities.” With a little less than two weeks to go, Rahul and
Vendor management team visit. “Serendipitously,” La- Jaspal continued to piece together a highly persuasive
litha continued, “the PFS President, Laura Ewing, and presentation. “We need to win this business and deliver
a vendor management team will be visiting Infosys in a high quality solution as it will open the door to other
Bangalore next week. The vendor management team is highly lucrative projects at PFS,” Rahul reiterated. “For
comprised of middle level IT and purchasing managers example, I understand that PFS plans to implement in
who deal with us on a regular basis. I wonder if we the near future new ERP, customer relationship man-
can use their visit to demonstrate that Infosys has the agement (CRM), and financial analysis systems. We
capability to deliver an end-to-end solution on the Ariba most certainly would want a piece of that action.”
e-procurement system project. We plan to provide all
team members associated with the PFS project five weeks ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION
of JAVA training here in Bangalore. Therefore, we could
1. Looking beyond the immediate Ariba e-procure-
take our PFS visitors over to the Infosys Education and
ment system project, what challenging issues relat-
Research (E&R) Group and have them sit in on several
ed to global marketing does this case pose for Infosys?
JAVA training sessions as well as demonstrations of
2. What quantifiable cost savings not specified in
JAVA projects that we have successfully completed in
project contracts has Infosys delivered to PFS dur-
the past. While they are visiting the E&R block, we might
ing the past five years?
also go over the consulting portion of our employee
3. What “knowledge transfer time” cost savings can
training programmes and introduce them to some of our
PFS expect from sole sourcing the Ariba e-procure-
new hires who come to Infosys with considerable con-
ment System project?
sulting experience.”
4. How can Infosys’ PFS Account Team persuasively
At the conclusion of the teleconference call, the four
sell the firm’s ability to deliver a superior end-to-
PFS account team members agreed that they had made
end solution for the Ariba e-procurement system
significant progress and agreed to search for additional
project?
documented cost savings that Rahul and Jaspal could
4
use in their presentation. These prices have been disguised for proprietary reasons. They do not
represent the actual prices that Infosys managers quoted on this project.

VIKALPA • VOLUME 32 • NO 2 • APRIL - JUNE 2007 91

Exhibit 1: The Seven Founders of Infosys and Their Current Positions
Mr. NR Narayana Murthy – Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor
Mr. Nandan M Nilekani – Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Mr. S Gopalakrishnan – President, Chief Operating Officer and Member of the Board
Mr. K Dinesh – Co-founder and Member of the Board of Infosys Technologies Limited
Mr. SD Shibulal – Group Head – Worldwide Sales and Customer Delivery
Mr. NS Raghavan – Retired
Mr. Ashok Arora – Left the company in 1989.

Exhibit 2: Average Performance Metrics on Maintenance Projects over Past Five Years
Performance Dimension PFS Target Infosys Results
Quality
• Requests delivered with zero defects (%) 90.0 97.1
• Delivered defects per 1,000 person hours 4.9 3.2
Timeliness
• Requests delivered on time (%) 91.0 99.6
• Effort estimation accuracy (%) 83.0 98.1
Reliability
• Uptime on Infosys maintained systems (%) 94.0 99.9
• Abend* ratio across Infosys maintained systems (%) 1.8 0.2
*Abend is an abnormal ending of a programme.

James A Narus is a Professor at the Babcock Graduate DVR Seshadri teaches extensively in the various long-term
School of Management, Wake Forest University in Charlotte, programmes at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
North Carolina. His teaching, research, and consulting as well as in various executive education programmes for
interests include value-based marketing, use of adaptive companies. He is also adjunct faculty at IIM Ahmedabad
channels, management of market offerings, and partnership where he teaches Strategy, B2B Marketing, and Corporate
between firms in business markets. His teaching portfolio Entrepreneurship. He has had over 15 years of industrial
includes such courses as marketing channel management, experience before joining academics in 2000. He has developed
strategic account management, sales management, marketing a number of case studies and papers in his areas of interest,
strategy and policy, brand management, and advertising viz., B2B marketing, strategy and corporate entrepreneurship
management. Over the years, he has also taught in executive He has authored over a dozen articles in refereed journals,
development programmes at Northwestern University, the developed over 70 case studies in his areas of interest, and
Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University, and recently co-authored a book, Innovation Management with
Twente University (The Netherlands). Narus has published Prof. Shlomo Maital of Technion Institute of Management,
numerous articles and research papers on business market Haifa, Israel, published by Sage (India).
management in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management e-mail: [email protected]
Review, California Management Review, and Journal of Marketing,
among other journals. He is the co-author of a seminal book,
‘Business Market Management: Understanding, Creating and
Delivering Value.
e-mail: [email protected]

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which

one should listen to. . . . The feeling for the things themselves,
for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.
— Vincent Van Gogh

92 INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES LTD.