Infosys Drives Into An Automated Future

Infosys declared its quarterly results in Bengaluru today - with CEO Vishal Sikka arriving at the briefing venue in a driverless cart designed at its Mysuru campus. An indication, perhaps, of the way ahead which will see automation taking over many human jobs. Infosys leaders do insist that jobs will open up in other spheres.

Mr Sikka told NDTV, "It is our indigenously built autonomous Golf Cart. We are very proud of it. It was built entirely in our campus in Mysore by our Engineering Services Team and you know the future is about autonomy... The future is about Automation Technology and AI technologies and every vehicle manufacturer is moving towards this."

The 'automation' word has certainly sent shivers down the spines of many who fear mass job losses in the IT industry as fallout. There have been many reports that thousands of people have lost their jobs, largely due to layoffs by big companies. However these reports have been denied by companies, industry body NASSCOM - and now by the Infosys chief too.

Mr Sikka said, "There is absolutely no truth to this mass lay-off rumour. It is complete nonsense. We hired more than 8,500 people in this past quarter. We did have an attrition of around 10K or so, so there is no lay-off happening at Infosys, period...at all. Typically in Q1, we do our performance oriented work and performance reviews so that leads to some people leaving, but that is all. I don't know...this became quite a big noise and there is absolutely no lay-off... We are hiring; we are hiring massive numbers of people and will continue to do so."

When asked if automation would have an impact on jobs, he said, "The rate of growth is impacted by automation and I think the more we focus on areas where we can build the automation technology, where we can build the next generation areas that are not yet prone to automation, the better."

Infosys is 1,800 employees down in the first quarter - unusual in a company that has added numbers over the last many quarters. The hiring of ten thousand people is planned over the next two years - but in the United States, in keeping with President Trump's hire American push.

Mr Sikka told NDTV, "Yes we need not only hire but also train people because the gap between the skills that are being taught at the universities and the skills at the workplace... there is still a big gap. In fact, we have already finished training the first 500 people in the US."

Sikka steering Infosys into the future - a future where automation will play an ever-increasing part.