At first sight, it seems as if the titans of India's tech-knowledge industry are a pair of Thai twins. One, the chairman and ceo of Infosys Technologies; the other, the chairman of Wipro Corporation. Both starting out in Maharashtra, one in Shivajinagar, Pune, the other in Amalner, Jalgaon, and both ending up in Bangalore. One helmsman 54 years of age, the other 55. One heading a company which has created the most value for shareholders over the past five years, the other a company which has been No. 2 in the value-creation stakes. One running an sei-cmm Level 5 company which is No. 3 in market capitalisation, the other an sei-cmm Level 5 company which is No. 2 in m-cap.
One is among the richest Indians in India, the other is the richest Indian on the globe; yet both are thrifty as hell. One the pioneer of employee stock option plans (esops), the other a rather late reader of esops fables. Both have emerged as models to emulate for their peers in the same field in post-liberalisation India. Both have become elder statesmen of the software industry. Both head companies that are cradles of talent. Both are notorious workaholics, spending an average 90 hours at work each week. Both can't stand late-comers. Both have created tens of millionaires. Both have entrusted their social and charitable responsibilities to their wives, both of whom are successful women in their own rights. Both have children studying abroad. Both admire Mahatma Gandhi...
Yet, Nagavara Ramarao Narayanamurthy and Azim Hasham Premji, to give their full names, are as different as chalk and chips. One represents the triumph of capitalism and is the arch wealth-creator. The other is a lapsed communist who grows his billions by distributing it to people like his driver. To see a commonality in the duo's triumph would seem like a nice little ending for a fairy-tale script of Indian genius against the might of mncs, only it isn't true. Sure, both are extremely unassuming for what they have achieved for themselves and their firms. Sure, both are very conscious of what they've done for the country and what they could do even further. But to see a similar strand in their successes would be unfair to the two vastly different routes they took to get where they have. And to the vastly different attitudes and approaches they have adopted to be where they are: on top of the technology totem pole.
And boy, are they different. Murthy was the fifth of eight children of a poor Brahmin schoolteacher in a small Karnataka town; Premji the son of a rich Bombay Muslim capitalist who could have become a minister in Pakistan had he accepted Mohammed Ali Jinnah's offer. Murthy's father, who earned Rs 170 a month, couldn't afford to send him to iit though he'd gained admission; Premji was finishing his engineering studies at Stanford when the call came that his father had expired. Murthy founded Infosys in 1981 with six other software writers and Rs 10,000 pooled from largely their wives' savings; Premji inherited a Rs 7-crore family business in 1966.
Murthy was an agreeable 35 when he started Infosys, Premji just 21 when he took over Western India Vegetable Products which later became Wipro Corp. For communist-turned-capitalist Murthy, Infosys was his fourth job; Premji's was his first. But the sharpest difference lies in their attitude to wealth creation. Murthy owns just 7.7 per cent of the firm he co-founded, Premji owns over 75 per cent of Wipro (see box). The upstart is the first Indian company to list on the tech-heavy nasdaq, the older rival is still to list abroad. While Murthy believes in esops as an instrument to attract talent and loyalty, Premji is dismissive. "Ownership is not just offering stock options. It has more to do with an emotional engagement and integration," he says.
That's not all. Murthy is media-savvy, ever accessible; Premji is media-shy, smiles little and speaks even less. Murthy loves the limelight and has taken on a high-profile role in espousing public causes; Premji prefers to lie low. Murthy's campus has cafes, tennis courts and saunas; Premji decries subsidised food and cellphones as frills. One loves to eat "set dosas" in quaint little restaurants in Mysore; the other chomps fried chicken and biryani from nameless roadside dhabas. One drives an Opel Astra, the other swears by the Ford Escort. One loves to just stay at home in his spare time, the other goes hiking at the slightest opportunity. Finally, and ironically, commoner Murthy provides services that barely, tangentially touch the lives of those of his ilk in the country he so loves; pedigreed Premji too does that, but he also makes soaps, cooking fats, tube lamps, baby-feed bottles, shoe uppers and PCs.
If there's one common turning point, it was 1991 and the opening up of the economy. As The Wall Street Journal reported in September last, when the reforms removed obstacles to growth and brought more competition from mncs, mainline industrialists demanded protection (remember the Bombay Club?). Murthy and Premji, on the other hand, focused on going global by utilising India's vast pool of English-speaking, technically skilled workers. Result: a decade later, the two friends and rivals now stand vindicated as pioneers and visionaries of an industry that has a real chance of helping India leapfrog from an agrarian economy to a service economy.
But 20 years ago, it didn't seem the Murthy-Premji saga would pan out so. In fact, there was a good chance the two would not even be rivals but partners. Murthy then headed the software division at Patni Computer Services, the socialist cobwebs in his mind cleared by a three-year stint in Paris designing the cargo-handling system at Charles de Gaulle airport. Premji, for his part, had just then veered his vanaspati company into making computers after George Fernandes had kicked ibm out in 1977. As he says of himself, "I'm not a technologist, but an entrepreneur in the area of technology."
The two met to discuss teaming up. Murthy's strength was programming services like helping firms upgrade software or improving operations such as inventory management. But Premji wanted to develop branded software, a la Microsoft. So they went their own ways. Murthy, who counts speed and imagination among his core strengths, launched Infosys, moving it later to Bangalore. It would be a decade before Wipro switched to software services. There are delicious rumours that Murthy did in fact work alongside Premji for a while, but he doesn't confirm or deny them. "Ask Premji," he says. Premji, of course, never speaks on such subjects.
How the two have come this far is the stuff legends are made of, especially in the case of Murthy and Infosys. "In the early '80s, we saw the potential of Bangalore as the ideal city for software development, so we rented a house in Jayanagar and set up operations," recalls K. Dinesh, a founder-director of Infy. "In 1983, we closed a contract worth Rs 1.2 crore with Mico-Bosch. Murthy and N.S. Raghavan (another co-founder) borrowed a scooter to go over and sign the deal. Vikram Bhat, Mico's director, chided them for coming on a scooter and asked them to rent a car the next time."
Adds S. Gopalakrishnan, deputy managing director and founder-director, Infosys: "At first, we worked as an offshore firm and so had to work on the site to prove software solutions. It took us a while to convince them that India had the capability. We were extremely cost-conscious and shared a flat and cooked food and whenever we were in the same town we shared a taxi to our project site. Sometimes we took a bus or even walked. Raghavan was the best cook among us and gave us delicious vegetarian dishes."
It is that - the humility of the founders - that provides the most endearing image of Infosys' success. And a giant contrast from the almost similar success of an established behemoth like Wipro, for which, though, computers and software development were a well-thought-out diversification. David and Goliath not only meet on a level playing field in the new economy but also eyeball each other.
To that extent, unfairly though, Premji will always carry the cross of having had a privileged upbringing vis-a-vis Murthy. While the Wipro head went to St Mary's School in what was then Bombay, for Murthy it was a whirl from one government school to another as his teacher father kept getting transferred all over the then state of Mysore. And, unlike Premji who had it all to himself, Murthy had to jostle with seven other siblings for a slice of everything.
"In Mandya (on the Bangalore-Mysore highway), my mother would tell us that she would pay us if we brought sawdust to boil water rather than pay the man who carried it from the timber market. So we used to borrow my father's cycle to bring the sawdust home and in the evening, eat dosas at a restaurant," says Murthy. Premji never had to do that but those who know say he's a simple man for all his wealth. He doesn't mind travelling in undusted Maruti 800s of his colleagues, or taking an autorickshaw.
"The happiest I have seen Premji is while eating roadside pakoras brought in while reviewing the performance of Wipro Lighting at Aurangabad or coconut water served at Wipro Fluid Power in Peenya," recalls Subroto Bagchi, former corporate vice-president (mission-quality), Wipro, now with MindTree Consultancy Services. "Once, while we were driving past a construction site on Hosur Road, he asked to stop at a roadside cart to eat green raw mangoes peppered with masala. I asked the driver to get the mangoes washed. Premji would have none of it. So there he was, eating raw green mangoes in one hand, swatting flies with the other."
In fact, if there is one place, besides their simple ways, where the oh-so-different master minds meet, it is their hard work. Both log between 72 and 90 hours each week. Murthy used to come into work by 6.30 am till last year, now he is in by eight. Ditto Premji. When his HR manager fired off an e-mail to a colleague for parking his car in the chairman's space, Premji cooled him down, saying the space would have been his if only he had come in to work on time.
Murthy's wife Sudha says she runs the family on a monthly budget of Rs 5,000. Ditto, Premji. He stays at value-for-money hotels when touring and is rarely seen on the social circuit.
"Whether it is the clothes he prefers, the hotels he stays in or the food he eats, Premji is the very antithesis of conspicuous consumption that many associate with business success," adds Bagchi. The same for Murthy: "My parents managed with dignity though my father was earning just
Rs 170. So we have imbibed this trait not to be influenced by money. If it did not influence us when we did not have it, I don't think it will influence us now." And for all his success, Murthy has not forgotten his moorings. Even today, he frequents Shalini, a 10-table, old-fashioned restaurant one lane behind where the Infosys saga began in Bangalore, every Sunday. "He orders a 'double' sugarless coffee, reads newspapers and orders his breakfast of two idlis and a vada," says Ramesh, his regular waiter.
If Murthy has put his stamp on Infosys with his middle-class values, Premji has made honesty and integrity his guiding light and personally delivers this message to everyone, even secretaries, who joins Wipro. In "Premji Believes", he addresses the newcomers within six months of their joining the company in groups of 20 to 30.
"At one session, some people asked him how to deal with corruption," remembers Sanjiv Mittal, a former Wipro man who is now ceo of Bharti BT: "He said, 'I believe that some part of the market is open to such underhand dealings but that is only a small part. In my estimate, 80 per cent of the market is corruption-free and that's where you have to do well. If you come back and tell me that only 20 per cent of the market is free from corruption, I will close down the company but I will not encourage bribes.'"
Stories of Premji refusing to give in to graft are legion. "When we launched Wipro's first PC in 1985, there was a new central excise officer who would not allow us to move the consignments without a bribe. He relented after five or six weeks when we told him that our chairman never greases a palm," recalls Anal Jain, now ceo of Birla Soft. When an electricity board official demanded a hefty bribe to ensure power supply, Wipro set up its own generating unit.
This is something Murthy can empathise with. As a group, Infosys believes solutions for problems lies within the organisation. "In 1992, we found a simple way out to retain our staff when all the mncs started coming to Bangalore," says Murthy. "There were three ways that we could have reacted - one was to go to the government and say, 'Don't open your doors to mncs', the second was to say this is our karma and lose our employees and the third was to look within for a solution. That's how we developed our first software development centre and offered stock options for employees and libraries and other in-house recreational facilities. In other words, we created a congenial workplace for our staff."
By handing over the operations' baton to co-founder Nandan Nilekani, Murthy's made another investment in youth. But he has balanced that with a higher public profile, one Premji is loathe to adopt. Referring to the Richest Indian label, Premji says: "The label I'd adore most is that of being the most respected industrial leader in India. That's a more important accolade than the previous one."
By injecting professionals at every level, both Premji and Murthy have sent clear signals to their relatives. But while Premji remains extremely cagey about his kin, Murthy often goes to town about his: "Gururaj 'Desh' Deshpande (Desh and Murthy are married to sisters, Jaishree and Sudha) in one of his interviews talked of my father-in-law as the most successful father-in-law in the country. But I would say he was the most successful father as he brought up three daughters and a son, each of whom received every gold medal that there was in every examination they took."
Then there's the sense of humour. Premji speaks in measured tones and only when asked to. Murthy fires on all pistons all the time. "Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men," he said, quoting Groucho Marx, accepting Business India's 'Businessman of the Year-1999' award. "The other 999 are following women."
