IT’s awesome twosome,the perfect combination of age and experience

Indeed,it has not been easy for TCS to keep up the tempo in a tough business environment. But the TCS chief has repeatedly surprised the Street,outperforming in quarter after quarter; TCS became the world’s second most valuable IT services company in 2013.

The first-ever Express IT Awards in Bangalore on Saturday will see Murthy being honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award and Chandrasekaran taking home the Newsmaker of the Year award.

Chandrasekaran has catapulted TCS into a different league altogether. With his extreme customer focus,in the last four years Chandra has transformed TCS,making it grow at a speed few companies can match. In 2013 he grew the company further,opening up a wider gap with all its rivals.

Here’s the strike rate: TCS led India’s top-tier IT pack with a 5.4 per cent sequential growth in dollar revenue during the July-September stretch,while it posted 4.1 per cent growth in the first quarter this fiscal.

Chandra has been credited with spearheading several strategic new business initiatives at TCS and adding new business lines. TCS,under him,has entered new industry verticals such as media and information services,mobile and digital services. All of these have since matured into sizeable businesses.

The history of Infosys is part of corporate India’s folklore,about how Murthy and six colleagues started the company with a capital of $250 in 1981. The going was tough but the band stuck together. In 1990,before the liberalisation era,there was a $1-million offer on the table for selling Infosys.

Nine years of work had not taken Infosys to any great heights and outsourcing had not still become a buzzword in India. A couple of his co-founders were in favour of selling out.

Chairman Murthy turned to his colleagues and gave a small speech. “This is our darkest hour before dawn. If you are all bent upon selling the company,I would buy out all of you,even if I did not have a cent in my pocket.” That was probably the last time an Infosys boardroom discussed the possibility of taking a backward step.

Today if India is a shining jewel in the global IT world,this brilliant visionary,a Padma Vibhushan recipient who loves western classical music,can take substantial credit for it. Murthy has come out of retirement to steer Infosys through difficult times,describing the company as his middle child and promising shareholders that it would take three years to make it a desirable company once again. FE