The Infy Epic

Infy is on a roll again. If there needed to be one example of using the media to the best of its advantage, look no further than Infy.

We have had so many firms in the country who have passed the 25 yrs. We have quite a number of firms that are more than $2 billion in size. We have TCS, the grand daddy of Indian IT doing a lot of things. But yet, no one remembers them as much as Infy.

The Infy way of media management probably had different agendas at different points of time. When Infy was this new kid on the block, they stayed low profile. Then they embarked on this strategy of under promising every quarter and then over shooting it always thus becoming the darling of the shareholders. That got it the visibility it desired in the markets.

Then came the days of the Global Branding. They did Nasdaq and did a lot of road shows in the US. By the time, the competitors had wisened up and the war for talent had become hot. Then Infy did that big $1 billion bash again telling the world, we love our employees ensuring that there are enough people still wanting to get into Infosys.

Now if you need to get into consulting, you need to again build that kind of visibility. To align with the international vision, they started the first ever widely publicized Global Internship program to brand themselves in campuses abroad.

Again the 25 yr bash and the 126 crores are all part of 'we love our employees' message. Today Infy realizes that the biggest challenge is again talent. So here you have all the directors of Infy sitting for television and talking in their own inimitable style again putting the desire in so many more young people to want to join Infosys.

But make no mistake. I dont think Infy is any evil corporation. In fact I think this media management is itself worth a case study...the changing faces of Infosys. I think Infy's success has been that they have been doing this before anyone even realized that you had to manage the media.