Convincing employees for a digital transformation is the key challenge: Infosys

Infosys is one of the few IT organisations in India that is leading the digital transformation in the world. It is also one of the very few who have realised that cultural change is required within an organisation to bring about a digital transformation. People need to adapt and it is the responsibility of the company itself to execute a smooth transition.

While this is fun, it is riddled with challenges even though this is the smartphone age.

Richard Lobo, senior vice president and head of human resources, Infosys Ltd, told Business Insider about the need for a cultural change and most importantly, the need to make things fun.

What are the cultural changes that the company brought in for the digital transformation?

What we have done in the last couple of years is that we have focussed on two things. One was to renew what Infosys was known for and is doing very well. It is not a fundamental change. It is like redoing what we were doing a little better. The second part is to do new things because the business context has changed, new things are happening and the world has changed. So you also have to innovate and think of new ideas and doing things differently.

We always were very strong on client focus. So, how do you improve the client focus? We said the person closest to the client should be the one to be focussed on as the aspect that they are close to the client will help us to do better innovation and help the client better. This is an example of how you do things differently without losing sight of what you are good at.

In this context one must also remember that Infosys did away with their ‘Monday tie’ rule a couple of months back.

We can’t hold on to something that is 20-25 years old.

There was a time when we had town hall discussions where a senior leader would go and talk. What we have done is we did not remove it completely; we have made the same thing available on people’s cellphone.

Why a cultural change is required for a digital transformation in an organisation?

Innovation is the key. This digital change is all across. We did not make an overnight change and said you adapt to it. It was an incremental change. Hence, adaptation was easier.

What are the challenges faced while bringing about a digital transformation in the company?

The challenges are people need to believe that this is the right thing to go forward. So we need to convince them that this is the right way to take things across. Second, there is huge amount of torque as digital requires lot of design thinking putting the user at the core; you have to think through what you are doing. Third is to ensure that you sustain. Fourth is to make it fun and interesting.

How things are made fun and interesting?

We have noticed that to commute to office is quite a boring thing, especially in Bangalore where people spend an hour and half on the road. So we thought can we get two buses to collaborate with each other. People in one bus can talk to the people in the other bus through network. We have not yet started it. We have just experimented it and realised that it can be done technically.

(Image credits: indiatimes)