It's a tightrope walk ahead for 46-year-old Nandan Mohan Nilekani, scheduled to take over the reins of India's poster company in infotech on March 31. On the eve of taking guard as ceo of Infosys Technologies, he chose to gauge the trends in a market he's extremely familiar with—the United States (Nandan cut his teeth in markets there, where he was in charge of worldwide sales and marketing between 1981 and '86). Before setting off for the US, he spoke to B.R. Srikanth. Excerpts:
How does it feel reaching the top rung of the ladder?
How different will the post be from the one you occupy now?
What are the challenges you see for the company in the next two years?
You spoke of 1999 and 2000. How soon will Infosys be able to repeat such three-figure growth?
Are you interested in IT-enabled services that apparently has immense as-yet-untapped potential?
Are you thinking of short-term cuts in profits to build long-term capabilities and carving a niche for yourself in the global market?
You spoke of likely competition emerging from companies in China. Would you explore the possibility of collaboration with some of them?
Indian tech stocks have slipped into a dormant phase. Shouldn't major players like Infosys work on strategies to rejuvenate them?
