What was changed
Infosys, once the bellwether of Indian IT, had slipped badly by 2017: months of hostility between founders and the board had led to its CEO's resignation, and growth had stalled. In January 2018 the board brought in Salil Parekh from Capgemini to put it back on track.
In April he set out a three-year plan built on three words: stabilize, gain momentum, then accelerate. The substance was to stop being a body-shop and make digital and cloud the engine — re-skilling staff, buying small cloud firms, and driving large deals in digital transformation rather than legacy outsourcing.
The pandemic became the proof. As enterprises rushed to remote work and digital, Infosys's digital revenue grew a scorching 25.4% year-on-year (constant currency) to $1.57bn in the September 2020 quarter, reaching 47.3% of total revenue. The company that had been directionless was once again growing faster than much of its market.
What it achieved
Digital revenue grew 25.4% to $1.57B and reached 47.3% of total revenue, as clients sped up transformation.
Why it worked
The management crisis and founder-board disconnect had made clients nervous and slowed decisions.
Parekh named digital and cloud as the single growth engine and rebuilt the workforce around it.
Small cloud acquisitions and large digital deals moved the mix toward higher-value work.
The pandemic accelerated enterprise digital spend, which Infosys was now positioned to capture.
What can be applied
A services firm that lost its way recovers by naming one growth engine and rebuilding capabilities around it, not by chasing the last quarter's contracts.
Aftermath
By fiscal 2021 Infosys was guiding to double-digit growth again and the stock re-rated, restoring its place among the top global IT services firms.
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