Thursday, July 24, 2008

Infosys Technologies Limited
TypePublic NASDAQ: INFY
BSE: 500209
FoundedJuly 2, 1981
HeadquartersFlag of India Electronics City, Hosur Road, Bangalore, India
Key peopleN. R. Narayana Murthy (Co-founder, Non Executive Chairman and Chief Mentor)
Nandan Nilekani (Co-founder and Co-Chairman)
Kris Gopalakrishnan (Co-founder,CEO and MD)
S. D. Shibulal (Co-founder andCOO)
IndustrySoftware services
ProductsFinacle (a universal bankingproduct)
ServicesInformation technology services and solutions
Revenue Rs. 16,692 crore ($4.18 billion) (FY 2007-08)
Net income Rs. 4,470 crore ($1.11 billion) (FY 2007-08)
Employees94,379 (As on 30 June, 2008)[1]
SubsidiariesInfosys BPO Limited (formerly Progeon)
Infosys Technologies (Australia) Pty. Limited
Infosys Consulting, Inc.
Infosys Technologies (China) Company Limited
Infosys Technologies S. de R. L. de C. V. (Mexico)

INFOSYS HISTORY

Infosys Technologies Limited (BSE: 500209, NASDAQ: INFY) is a multinational information technology services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It is one of India's largest IT companies with over 91,187 professionals (as of March 31, 2008), nine development centers in India and over 30 offices worldwide. Its annual revenues for the fiscal year 2007-2008 exceeded US$4 billion with a market capitalization of over US$30 billion.

Infosys was founded on July 2, 1981 in Pune by N. R. Narayana Murthy and six others: Nandan Nilekani, N. S. Raghavan, Kris Gopalakrishnan, S. D. Shibulal, K. Dinesh and Ashok Arora, with Raghavan officially being the first employee of the company. Murthy started the company by borrowing INR 10,000 from his wife Sudha Murthy. The company was incorporated as "Infosys Consultants Pvt Ltd.", with Raghavan's house in Matunga, north-central Mumbai as the registered office.

In 2001 it was rated "Best Employer in India" by Business Today,. Infosys won the Global MAKE (Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises) award, for the years 2003, 2004 and 2005, being the only Indian company to win this award and is inducted into the Global Hall of Fame for the same

TIMELINE OF INFOSYS

  • 1981: Founded.
  • 1983: Moved its headquarters to Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka
  • 1987: First international sales office in Boston.
  • 1987: Got its first foreign client, Data Basics Corporation from the United States
  • 1993: Became a public limited company in India with an initial public offering of Rs. 13 crores.
  • 1996: First office in Europe in Milton Keynes, UK
  • 1997: Office in Toronto, Canada
  • 1999: Listed on Nasdaq.
  • 1999: Attained a SEI-CMM Level 5 ranking and became the first Indian company to be listed on NASDAQ
  • 2000: Opened offices in France and Hong Kong
  • 2001: Opened offices in United Arab Emirates and Argentina
  • 2002: Opened new offices in Netherlands, Singapore and Switzerland.
  • 2002: Business World named Infosys "India's Most Respected Company".
  • 2002: Started Progeon, its BPO (business process outsourcing) subsidiary
  • 2003: Acquired 100% equity of Expert Information Services Pty Limited, Australia (Expert) and changed the name to Infosys Australia Pty Limited.
  • 2004: Set up Infosys Consulting Inc., U.S. consulting subsidiary in California, U.S.
  • 2006: Became the first Indian company to ring the NASDAQ Stock Market Opening Bell
  • 2006: August 20, N. R. Narayana Murthy retired from his position as the executive chairman
  • 2006: Acquired the 23% stake Citibank had in its BPO offshoot Progeon, making it a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys and changed the name to Infosys BPO Ltd.
  • 2006: December, became the first Indian company to make it to Nasdaq-100.
  • 2007: April 13, Nandan Nilekani stepped down as CEO and made way for Kris Gopalakrishnan to occupy his chair effective June 2007
  • 2007: July 25, Infosys bags multi-million dollar outsourcing contract with Royal Philips Electronics in the area Finance & Accounting services strengthening its European operations.
  • 2007: September, Infosys establishes a wholly-owned Latin American subsidiary, Infosys Technologies S. de R. L. de C. V., and opens its first software development center in Latin America in the city of Monterrey, Mexico.

During the 14-year period from 1993 to 2007, the issue price of an Infosys share has increased three thousandfold. This is excluding the dividends that the company has paid out over this duration.

KEY INDUSTRIES

Infosys serves various industries through its Industrial Business Units (IBU), such as:

  • Banking & Capital Markets (BCM)
  • Communications Media and Entertainment (CME)
  • Aerospace & Avionics
  • Energy, Utilities and Services (EUS)
  • Insurance, Healthcare and Life Sciences (IHL)
  • Manufacturing (MFG)
  • Retail, Consumer Product Goods and Logistics (RETL)
  • New Growth Engines (NGE)
  • India Business Unit (IND)

In addition to these, there are Horizontal Business Units (HBUs)

  • Consulting
  • Enterprise Solutions (ES) (ESAP & ESX)
  • Infrastructure Management Services (IMS)
  • Product Engineering and Validation Services (PEVS)
  • Systems Integration (SI)

INITIATIVES

In 1996, Infosys created the Infosys Foundation in the state of Karnataka, operating in the areas of health care, social rehabilitation and rural uplift, education, arts and culture. Since then, this foundation has spread to the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Punjab. The Infosys Foundation is headed by Mrs. Sudha Murthy, wife of Chairman Narayana Murthy.

Since 2004, Infosys has embarked on a series of initiatives to consolidate and formalize its academic relationships worldwide under the umbrella of a program called AcE - Academic Entente. Through case study writing, participation in academic conferences and university events, research collaborations, hosting study trips to Infosys Development Centers and running the InStep Global Internship Program, the company communicates with important stakeholders in the academia.

Infosys' Global Internship Program, known as InStep, is one of the key components of the Academic Entente initiative. It offers live projects to interns from the universities around the world. InStep recruits undergraduate, graduate and PhD students from business, technology, and liberal arts universities to take part in an 8 to 24 week internship at one of Infosys' global offices. InStep interns are also provided career opportunities with Infosys.

In 1997 Infosys started the "Catch them Young Programme", to expose the urban youth to the world of Information Technology by conducting a summer vacation programme. The programme is aimed at developing an interest and understanding of computer science and information technology. This programme is targeted at students in Grade IX level

In 2002, the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania and Infosys started the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award. This technology award recognizes enterprises and individuals who have transformed their businesses and the society leveraging information technology. Past winners include Samsung, Amazon.com, Capital One, RBS and ING Direct.

RESEARCH IN INFOSYS

One of the major initiatives taken by Infosys in terms of research was to develop a corporate R&D wing called Software Engineering and Technology Labs (SETLabs). SETLabs was founded in 2000 to carry out applied research for the development of processes, frameworks and methodologies to effectively capture customer requirements and to iron out common critical issues during a project lifecycle.

Infosys publishes a peer-reviewed quarterly journal called SETLabs Briefings which has articles written by the researchers at SETLabs on various current and future business-transforming technology management themes. Infosys has an RFID and Pervasive Computing Technology practice which is providing RFID and wireless services to clients. Infosys along with Motorola developed an RFID interactive mirror for Paxar. 

SETLabs has created about five to six frameworks in the domains of business modelling, technology and product innovation.

GLOBAL OFFICES

Asia Pacific

  • India: Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bhubaneswar, Mangalore, New Delhi, Mysore, Mohali, Thiruvananthapuram, Chandigarh, Kolkata (proposed and now confirmed),Vishakapatnam (proposed)[16]
  • Australia: Melbourne, Sydney
  • China: Beijing, Shanghai
Further information: Infosys China
  • Hong Kong: Hong Kong
  • Japan: Tokyo
  • Mauritius: Mauritius
  • UAE: Sharjah
  • Philippines: Taguig City

North America

  • Canada: Toronto
  • USA: Atlanta (GA), Bellevue (WA), Bridgewater (NJ), Charlotte (NC), Southfield (MI), Fremont (CA), Houston (TX), Glastonbury (CT), Lake Forest (CA), Lisle (IL), New York, Phoenix (AZ), Plano (TX), Quincy (MA), Reston (VA)
  • Mexico: Monterrey

Europe

  • Belgium: Brussels
  • Denmark: Copenhagen
  • Finland: Helsinki
  • France: Paris
  • Germany: Frankfurt, Stuttgart
  • Italy: Milano
  • Norway: Oslo
  • Poland: Łódź
  • The Netherlands: Utrecht
  • Spain: Madrid, Burgos
  • Sweden: Stockholm
  • Switzerland: Zürich
  • UK: Canary Wharf, London