A Report on Strategies of

Nandan Nilekani




Nandan Nilekani



Introduction
Nandan Nilekani is an Indian entrepreneur, bureaucrat and politician. He was the
Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). After a
successful career at Infosys, he headed the Government of India's technology
committee, TAGUP. He is a member of Indian National Congress.





Early Life
Nandan Nilekani was born on 2 June 1955 at Bangalore, Karnataka. His parents
Durga and Mohan Rao Nilekani are from Konkani Brahmin community originally
from Sirsi town in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka His father worked as a
General Manager of Mysore and Minerva Mills and subscribed to Fabian
Socialist ideals that influenced Nilekani in his early years. Nilekani's elder brother,
Vijay, works in the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Nilekani studied at the Bishop Cotton Boys' School and St. Joseph High
School Dharwad, Karnataka PU College Dharwad and received a bachelor's degree
in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology
Bombay, Mumbai.

Career
Information Technology
Nilekani in 1978 started his career at the Mumbai-based Patni Computer Systems,
where he met and was interviewed by N.R. Narayana Murthy. In 1981, Nilekani,
Murthy, and five others left Patni to start their own company, Infosys. Nilekani
became the Chief Executive Officer of Infosys in March 2002 and served as CEO of
the company through April 2007, when he relinquished his position to his
colleague Kris Gopalakrishnan and became co-chairman of the board of directors.
Before assuming leadership as CEO in 2002, Nilekani held various posts, including
managing director, president, and chief operating officer. He served as its CEO
from March 2002 to April 2007.
Bureaucracy
Nilekani left Infosys in July 2009 to serve as the chairperson of the Unique
Identification Authority of India, a cabinet-ranking position that he entered under
the invitation of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. As chair of the UIDAI he is
responsible for implementing the envisioned Multipurpose National Identity Card,
or Unique Identity card (UID Card) project in India. This initiative aims to provide a
unique identification number for all residents of India and will be used primarily
as the basis for efficient delivery of welfare services. The identification method
will be biometric, and the drive to create this government database of the
entire population of India has been called "the biggest social project on the
planet."
He is a member of the board of governors of the Indian Council for Research on
International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and the president of NCAER (the
premier independent applied economics research institute in India). He also sits
on several advisory boards, including those of the World Economic
Forum Foundation and the Bombay Heritage Fund.
Nilekani has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote his
book Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation and spoke at a TED
conference in 2009 on his ideas for India's future.




Politics
Nilekani joined Indian National Congress in March, 2014 and contested from
the Bangalore South constituency where he lost by 2,28,575
votes to BJP candidate Ananth Kumar in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Personal Life
Nilekani is married to Rohini Nilekani, whom he met at a quizzing event at
IIT. They have two children, Nihar and Janhavi, each of whom has received an
undergraduate degree from Yale University.











Awards and Recognition
2011: Received NDTV's Transformational Idea of the Year award for his work on
Aadhaar.
2010: Listed as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2010 by the Foreign Policy
magazine.
2009: His book 'Imagining India' was one of the finalists for the FT-Goldman Sachs
Book Award.
2009: On Time Magazine's list of the World's 100 Most Influential People.
2006: On Time Magazine's list of the World's 100 Most Influential People.
2006: Awarded one of India's highest civilian honours, the Padma Bhushan.
2006: Named Businessman of the Year by Forbes Asia.
2005: Won the prestigious Joseph Schumpeter Prize for innovative services in
economy, economic sciences and politics.
2004: Named Corporate Citizen of the Year at the Asia Business Leaders Award
organized by CNBC.


Strategies and its Implications by Nandan M Nilekani
Leadership Strategy of Nandan Nilekani
As the saying goes, like attracts like, Nilekani also has exceptional leadership
skills as his colleague and partner Narayan Murthy. He also loves taking risks.
After their successful stint with Patni, the duo started Infosys with the venture
capital of just dollar 250. It is unthinkable to go to form a globally competitive
organization in this small budget, but both Narayan and Nilekani were crazily
determined and they had faith in their capabilities.
Despite his brief stint at a software development firm, and lack of experience,
Nilekani shifted his base to the United States, along with his partner Narayan
Murthy in 1981. He handled business development and marketing for his startup.
He returned to his home country India in 1987, and continued his developmental
efforts for Infosys. In a couple years, Infosys Technologies became a reputed
multinational company, thanks to the efforts of the team and the leadership style
of the two fast friends Nandan and Narayan. Coronation as CEO of Infosys
In 2002, Nilekani became the CEO of Infosys. His mission statement was to
introduce excellence in execution in the organization. He streamlined the
business operations of Infosys, by dividing it into several units such as
manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, and financial services, etc. He also
stressed upon hiring the best talent in the market and running effective training
programs to bring about high employee and customer satisfaction. His leadership
style was responsible to implement the global service delivery model, Infosys
Technologies, practices today. Under his chairmanship, Infosys was declared as
the best company to work for in India and won various other accolades.
Competitive advantage compared to peers in India and abroad
Competitiveness comes from the fact that the company was build organically
from the ground, based on the global delivery model. It was advantage of being
headquartered in India and thereby having low corporate overheads. Nilekani also
had the advantage of having created an organisational structure which is
managed globally in a seamless way.
Now the world has accepted the global delivery model as the model of the future;
anybody who has not designed their business in Infosys model will have to modify
their business to look like Infosys. That is big competitive advantage with respect
to global competitors.
With respect to Indian competitors, he was able to place Infosys uniquely. It has a
very strong brand; it is a well-known company with very strong people. He
attracted the best and the brightest to work for him, maintaining very high
quality. Also, in terms of delivering business solutions to the marketplace and in
terms of consulting capability ramp-up, He also managed to make it better placed
than anybody else.
On Capitalising American Market
Understanding the American market and helping Infosys to root them self in
America was the biggest achievement of Nandan nilekani, behind this success he
gave credit to himself for understanding the psyche of American customers. By all
of this his strategy of cultivating the cultural aspects for the business is comes into
the picture later also this strategy is used by many others.
About importance to the labour arbitrage between the US and India
He considered Labour arbitrage as just one dimension of the model. Cost
advantages from being headquartered in India and having low corporate
overheads do seeped in, but that was not all. More importantly, doing work from
India was not just about hiring a few guys in India; the whole company had to be
organised like that. He thought that if Labour arbitrage between the US and India
was bridged the Costs will be leveraged to get customer access and business, but
over time the other attributes would become more important. And according to
him costs is not only something which can give you an entry into a market, but
having gained entry, you have to sell on other things too.
On Making Public Statements
In all his interviews Nandan Nilekani talks about always be careful in what we talk
about and what we say. It is shown in all of his decision while on Infosys or in the
political world. There is one phrase shared by him in the magazine called The
Smart Manger vol 6 issue 1 dated dec 06 jan 07 the phrase goes like this For
example, if I make a statement, its not me Nandan making the statement, its
the CEO of Infosys making the statement, and that can have huge repercussion.
Experience has taught me to be circumspect in what I talk about and what I say.



On Working with Narayan Murthy
Working with Narayan murthy was not an easy task but for that Nandan Nilekani
had a strategy of working for the company thinking for the company before self
and Narayan Murthy also shares the same thought which was proved by his
words expressed in the magazine called The Smart Manger vol 6 issue 1 dated dec
06 jan 07 the words go like this Infosys has lasted 25 years, and Bill Gates asked
Murthy how has the same group of people stayed together for this long a time.
Sustainability is about putting the company before self.
Strategy to minimise the impact of rupee appreciation
When asked in 2004 about managing appreciation of INR to manage revenue
from overseas He stated
If the rupee is going to appreciate, so be it. It shows that the Indian economy is
becoming more attractive. It shows that FIIs are investing and Indians are
confident and doing more remittances. It's part of the game. We had it going the
other way between 1981 and 2004, and we benefited from it.
Strategical Shift to bureaucracy
In 2009, responding to the invite of the then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh,
Nandan took the charge as Chair person of Unique Authority of India. In which he
showed great vision after having enrolled 600 million Indians (and possibly some
non-Indians) into the worlds largest and most audacious government ID project,
the Unique Identification Authority of Indias (UIDAI) Aadhaar. Nilkeni quoted
We felt speed was strategic. Doing and scaling things quickly was critical. If you
move very quickly it doesnt give opposition the time to consolidate, Later he
resigned to play bigger role in INC.
Strategy for contesting Loksabha Election 2014
Although his decision to contest election from congress was received with mixed
criticism, and also the result of the election were not in his favor in spite of that
he came up with several innovative campaign to lure the people of his
constituency. Some of which are Together with nandan, 3 Promise from the
man who delivers, Jana Spanadana, Campaign Chronicle.


Suggestions
Nandan Nilekani is considered among the most successful business leaders from
India. He has several accolades and awards to his name which are proofs of his
tremendously rich leadership in fostering Infosys first and then UIDAI. Although
he failed in his first attempt in to the politics, he is surely a person to be watched
out in the future. It seems that Nandan is now concentrating more on political
career but there has been a kid of revolt from the employees of Infosys to bring
Nilekani back as a CEO, So base on his previous records and current performance
In the election it is preferable for him to rejoin Infosys.

Conclusion
The billionaire entrepreneur, Nilekani, who became extremely popular after
innovating the Aadhar card facility for every Indian resident, also took a plunge
towards political career, Conferred the Padma Bhushan in 2006. In 1980s and 90s
Nandan Nilekani and his team worked hard to build Infosys. In this entire journey
the lessons he learnt here-meritocracy; the ability to work as part of a team; hard
work; and the importance of giving back to the society-have stood him in good
stead.
So, it can be said that Nandan Nilekani surely is a peoples man he believes in
serving society to the fullest being a great source of inspiration to any young
entrepreneur.
Bibliography
http://www.nandannilekani.in/en/biography
http://forbesindia.com/article/big-bet/how-nandan-nilekani-took-aadhaar-
past-the-tipping-point/36259/1
http://www.sify.com/finance/nandan-nilekani-explains-the-objectives-of-
the-uid-scheme-and-its-challenges-imagegallery-corporate-stuff-
kkem6Kbaajhsi.html
http://emereo.net/success/nandan-nilekani-career-2/
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Nandan-Nilekani
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/full-transcript-nandan-nilekani-on-uid-
project-aadhaar-169738
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50653363/final-ppt