Desirable newness” is one of Kundapur Vaman Kamath’s favourite phrases. When his successor at ICICI Bank, Chanda Kochhar, completely changed the way India’s largest private sector bank was functioning under him, Kamath nodded approvingly from a distance and said it was all part of a “desirable newness”.
Millions of Infosys shareholders would perhaps say the same thing now, after he was chosen the non-executive chairman of one of India’s leading software services companies. For, Kamath brings in a certain “positive aggression” (a phrase repeated by the top Infosys men, including Narayana Murthy) and his considerable skills in mentoring — something Kochhar was the first to acknowledge after Infosys made the announcement. Infosys needs both these skills from its chairman at a time when there are voices of discontent in the senior management and the financial performance has been indifferent.
Kamath picked up the “desirable newness” phrase from one of his favourite professors at IIM Ahmedabad, an institution, he often says, changed his world forever. For, had he not gone to IIM-A, he would have been happy managing his father’s roofing tile business near his ancestral village, Kundapur, which is 100 km from Mangalore.
Though he doesn’t have any formal background in information technology, the 6-foot-2 inch banker will still be in familiar territory in Infosys, a company he joined as an independent director in 2009. For, he was single-handedly responsible for ushering in a technological revolution in banking. Consider this: At a time when the entire banking industry had 100 ATMs, Kamath set a target of 1,000 ATMs in the first year itself. “People thought I have gone mad, but we proved them wrong, as the technology behind it was pretty simple. What was required was a change in mindset,” Kamath said in a conversation with Business Standard sometime back.
His belief that technology is embedded in every line of business and the head of business should take responsibility for it was the reason why the technology team in ICICI always reported to him directly when he was the MD.
Kamath has also made it more than evident that if financial inclusion has to be much more than just pious words, there is a need for new technology platforms at a fraction of the costs of the current technology and a new delivery architecture which is based on a partnership model.
More From This Section
Kamath thinks Infosys doesn't need to deviate much from its positive aggression. "A company which is growing at 25 per cent CAGR and is in the safe hands of two strong executives like Kris and Shubu does not need more aggression. My role is guidance and practising good governance," Kamath, a keen Formula 1 racing fan, said in his first comments after being named non-executive chairman. That's almost a mirror image of his current role at ICICI Bank.
Kamath has a simple mantra on how to increase efficiency: 80:20 rule, which is prioritising the vital few and trivial many. The rule essentially means that you focus 80 per cent of your time and energy on the 20 per cent of your work that is really important.
Another favourite management mantra has been what Kamath would often call the 90-day rule, a phrase he picked up from a dotcom seminar in New York. The start-ups were taking products from concept to market in 90 days because if they didn't, somebody else would. For example, ICICI Ltd's ADR issue in 1999. The merchant bankers said it will take at least a year before ICICI could float the issue as it had to go in for US GAAP first. But Kamath gave them a 90-day deadline. He remembers how his team along with other external agencies worked round-the-clock in three shifts and managed to list within 74 days. Six months later, when ICICI Bank went in for an ADR, the new deadline was 74 days!
Infosys could also take cue from the new chairman's obsession of not allowing silos to grow. "I tell people that if I see a silo, I'm going to take a big stick to it. If you don't do that, silos grow, they get set in stone, and you find you can't do business anymore," he said.
Narayana Murthy has often said the Infosys succession is almost like "giving away your daughter". He would be happy that his daughter has finally got a "suitable boy".
For the "boy", however, the only casualty would be his dream of going to Kundapur — his ancestral place — more often.