Infosys chief against FI man on company boards

In fact, there is no point in reserving seats on the board to any category, be it institutions or employees, he told the seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

"We must create performance standards for external directors too and it would be a good idea to give him a job brief upfront so that he too is prepared for the role he is supposed to play in a company," Narayana Murthy said.

Earlier, noted economist Omkar Goswami said having an FI nominee on a board would make it difficult for the person to think in twodiametrically opposite ways. "As an investor he would be deciding on what is good for his company and as a director he has to help the company in whatever endeavours it is making. This makes it difficult as the FI nominee has to think wearing two hats," Goswami said.

Narayana Murthy said corporate governance was now no more a matter of debate as the need for global capital would make it imperative for Indian firms to improve disclosure levels and bring in transparency to meet global standards.

"We at Infosys went for generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) four years ago not with an eye on a Nasdaq listing but because we felt it would increase the trust that people have in us," he said.

To start with companies must abide by all rules laid down by government so that there is an incentive among government to reduce these rules, he said. Ashok Leyland managing director R Seshasayee said Indian firms may not be able to attract investors by their sterling performance, so they should attempt to do sothrough better transparency.

"This should be our competitive advantage," he said and added that the goal of the company should be to maximise shareholders’ value, be it a promoter, a financial institution or an individual investor.”

Companies must conduct their affairs in a manner that would benefit, customers, investors, vendor partners, employees, government and society at large, he said.

Software industry to grow 40%

CHENNAI, JULY 13: The computer software industry in India would grow between 30 to 40 per cent during the current financial year, chairman and managing director of Infosys Technologies NR Narayana Murthy said here today.

"We expect the industry to grow by 30 to 40 per cent this year, despite the slowdown in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) business," Narayana Murthy told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar here.

Asked about the culmination of the `Y2K’ (Millennium Bug) business in the next few months, he said companies that have managed to progressively reducetheir exposure in this area of operation would not be adversely affected.

He admitted that ERP business had slowed down over the last few months due to the fact that many companies preferred to postpone implementation of these solutions after solving their `Y2K’ problems.

Narayana Murthy, however, denied ERP packages were losing their sheen in Indian markets because they were too demanding on the corporates, and said there was only a temporary rethink among companies and soon things would look up again.