Aikido: Vishal Sikka unveils new strategy for Infosys on Narayana Murthy's birthday

Infosys, the country’s second-largest software services company, on Thursday announced new services – Aikido – that will focus on design thinking, platforms and knowledge-based IT as part of its efforts to return to industry-leading growth numbers. These services are aimed at helping clients address three key aspects of their business: a non-disruptive renewal and simplification of their existing landscapes, introduction of new offerings and business models in a dynamic business environment, and creating a culture of innovation in their organisations. Announcing new services at the Infosys town hall here, CEO and MD Vishal Sikka said, “… three steps forward Ki, Do and Ai; each of these by themselves help enterprises along a great new path, each of these helps bring together and tie together a lot of Infosys services we offer to clients today and together the three of these become even more powerful than the three individually by themselves.” [caption id=“attachment_2353868” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Vishal Sikka. Reuters[/caption] He added: “In case you haven’t noticed, the three add up to Aikido, which is an East Asian martial art with its deep rooted origin in Kerala. Aikido is all about transforming, converting, and leveraging the chaotic energy of an opponent into a great focused direction.” “When we look at the chaotic energy that is inside an enterprise and is in the middle of a transformation we believe that the principal of Aikido – of taking that chaotic energy and turning it into a focused precision – is something that can help us move enterprises forward,” he added. The first of these services is “Ki” which is a large scale modular service to help renew enterprise landscapes. Services in this space will include knowledge-based IT strategy, which will involve KBIT assessments, knowledge curation services focused on helping enterprises consolidate and transition business, operations and workforce, among others. Second is “Do” which refers to the service offering on design thinking and design-led initiatives that will provide Infosys the framework for finding, understanding and defining the problems that are most important to clients and their businesses. Third is “Ai” which refers to platforms as a service to build intelligent solutions. This includes Infosys Information Platform, an open source data analytics platform that enables businesses to operationalise their data assets and uncover new opportunities for rapid innovation and growth. “Ki” and “Do” services will be offered by Infosys Consulting, the company said, adding that it plans to offer platforms to address the Internet of Things (IoT) and Application Programming Interface (API) requirements of its clients. “Ai- is combining; Ki- the energy, the knowledge; and Do- the path- together will help us and our clients combine our energy and knowledge along our path,” Sikka said. Also informing that the announcement coincides with the birthday of Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy, he said that the company is working on a strategy about the duality of “renew and new” in the last thirteen months or so. “All of our service offerings, all of our service clients we have been renewing those, we have been renewing those with the help of automation, we have been renewing those on the basis of innovation. We have been working on amazing new areas like zero distance,” he added. Projecting a “tremendous” potential for Infosys to grow and lead, Sikka had earlier said that the management’s mission is to prepare the company for realising the aspirational goal of achieving $20 billion revenue by 2020. Citing opportunities in the wake of global digital transformation, he had said Infosys has the potential to become a leading IT services company in the world and a bellwether once again. The company, which was facing laggard performance compared to peers like TCS and HCL Technologies, has embarked on a new path under its CEO Vishal Sikka to turn things around. Sikka has said the management’s mission is to prepare the company for realising the aspirational goal of achieving $20 billion revenue by 2020. PTI