Today in Tech: Infosys Jack Palmer case; Wipro's results

Infosys-Jack Palmer mediation fails

Last month, a US Federal Judge asked Infosys and Jack Palmer, who accused Infosys of misusing visas and of mistreating him when he raised the issue, to go for a mediation to settle it. The conference took place yesterday in US and - not surprisingly -  failed. It leads to the next step. The trial in the court will begin on 20 August. Jack Palmer’s case has already triggered a probe that is looking into whether Infosys violated Visa laws.

Wipro: three takeaways

Wipro announced its first quarter results yesterday and disappointed the market. The press conference was an echo of Infosys, which is facing the heat of slow market growth, rather than of TCS, which is  more positive about the sector. (HCL Technologies, which is seen to be doing well in the market is announcing its results today, and Cognizant, which is again growing its revenues faster than industry, on 6th August.

Here are some points that I found interesting from the press conference and media coverage.

Granularity of growth: Even some years back, it was common for IT companies to say that ‘we grew across all segments and all geographies’. There was a general momentum in the market, and it seemed everyone was riding on it. Things changed during the financial crisis. The most common expression these days is ‘it depends on your portfolio’. (Even TCS found the going tough in domestic market, which otherwise seems to be doing well.) TK Kurien, CEO of Wipro's IT Services business invoked the term in an interview with Business Line to explain why some companies seem to be doing better than the others in the market.

Returns on restructuring: It takes time. It has been well known for sometime how Kurien was trying, to put it broadly, the culture of Wipro. A CEO who swears by the process driven approach of GE, he streamlined them at Wipro at many levels. A chartered accountant, trained to get a better sense of the world through numbers, he has been tracking them relentlessly both in delivery and sales. He has spent the last year tweaking the processes, cutting flab in some parts, and adding muscle to others. The latest is setting up a 130 people strong sales force that would hunt for new accounts. So, how do the numbers look? Kurien has spoken about the need to differentiate between P&L numbers and lead indicators, such deals flow, pipeline, customer feedback etc. For the management, the long term looks solid. However, P&L doesn’t tell a great story, prompting jokes about how the first three letters in the company’s name stand for work in progress.

The role of next-gen: Ever since Rishad Premji, son of Azim Premji, joined Wipro – through a very rigorous process - there have been questions about when he will take the top job. As he rose through the ranks, becoming its chief strategy officer last year, the questions grew louder. Azim Premji has said Rishad won’t succeed Kurien as CEO. A seat in the board seems more plausible. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported: Premji, who with his family controls 78 percent of Wipro, said “it would make sense” for his son Rishad to succeed him eventually as non-executive chairman, though he said he has no plans to step down for at least the next 24 months. When a journalist asked Premji for updates on this, he said he did not say anything about not stepping down for at least 24 months. When the journalist insisted she was quoting verbatim from the report, Premji said he was misquoted. The mystery continues.

Also of interest

• Still No 1: India continues to be the most preferred destination amongst both buyers and service providers, followed by China and the Philippines, according to a report by Everest Group.
• Apple disappoints: Apple's results fell short of Wall Street's expectations as the European economy sagged and consumers held off on buying its flagship iPhone – Reuters
• Sharp fall: Sharp may lay off several thousand workers and sell office buildings in Tokyo - Reuters
• Up in the sky: Indian scientists are embarking on an ambitious and unprecedented project to build computer models that will allow them to predict the movements of monsoons weeks in advance. – Popular science
• Now, you too own it: Twitter Is Working on a Way to Retrieve Your Old Tweets - NYTimes Bits
• Microsoft's new strategist: Mark Penn hopes to boost Bing - WSJ Digits
• As it should be? In This World, A Software Engineer Gets Paid More Than The CEO: Business Insider
• Offline matters: A New Problem for Tech to Solve: Connecting People Offline: Pandodaily

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.