Infosys fired 2100 employees. But, are we missing the big picture?

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Forbes has recently published its Global 2000 companies list and placed Infosys at 891. Not only that as per Forbes, Infosys is among the companies that are hiring along with TCS and Wipro. Quite contrary to what Forbes has said, Infosys has actually fired 2100 employees for poor performance.

Some of these employees have been asked to go while some have left on their own. Prior to asking the employees to leave, they were put on a performance improvement course and those who showed no improvement were asked to leave while some others quit. Tolerance to poor performance is very low given the current economic scenario. (BusinessStandard)

Infosys employee strength is between 103,000 to 105000 and the fired employees constitute a mere 2% of the total workforce. As per Infosys’s CEO they fire close to 5% workforce every year. 2% is very less by global standards and is only expected from companies like Infosys whose main capital is their people. It is not even alarming to think if this is the trend.

What is alarming is the threats Indian IT foresee for the next few quarters. Many of the companies including Infosys and TCS projected a bleak outlook for the earnings season. Indian IT as per Economic Times might shed some 75000 jobs this year. That to me is a very significant number.

Indian IT was jolted by the 7000 crore Satyam scandal at the start of the year. Luckily for Indian IT, that did not affect very much. Even Satyam has turned up some cash and is close to generating profits. This is a good indication that the global outsourcing industry is intertwined and India is an important link in that. Indian IT also got lucky with Japan opening its gates to its software services market. Patni Computers got a recent contract from one of the Japanese companies.

In a previous blog post of 11 questions to outsourcing industry, there were several question to the industry and the affect of recession on the industry as a whole. One important question or rather an answer to the whole puzzle is the Indian domestic market itself. IBM is continuing to dominate the market with the Indian IT players lagging behind.

Indian IT services is estimated to be at $5bn. Infosys has less than a percent market share in India. It might do well to improve on that. So will the rest of the IT companies. So, When will Indian IT dial India? It is fine if there are some missed calls but the important thing is – it has to dial.

10 Comments
  1. Qumar Shaikh says

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  2. sanjana says

    Infosys is not a good company to start with though its recuiriting a large no. of trainees but the management is treating them like slaves nd firing a huge no. of trainees ,playing with the lives of some dedicated nd honest people,it wont last long…….

  3. sanju says

    All this is politics yaar. This is not performance. truth is projects are diminishing,company is bleeding.And project managers have seized this opportunity to play havoc on the lives of very dedicated people but have got on their wrong side. My friend had client apprecition,worked very hard but was betrayed by his pm. The higher management and HR behaved like bullies even though they knew it was the pm’s wickedness and not his perfor,ance. Infosys has got some b and C grade HR people who don’t bother to take action against managers and allows honest emoployees to be blamed and bearthe consequences.So much fr their values. I have never seen such cheap and bullying management.It is like living in a communist regime. The company is not going to last very long from the way its operating. All its shady activities should be exposed and the HR and management should be oput behind bars for torturing poor employees.As for these awards they are sham. Infosys can get any no of awards for their clout thanks to the brilliant PR team and money poer. They say money buys a lot of things

  4. kapil says

    there is a huge picture to be seen ..its not only infosys there are many conpanies, are in mood og firing people? Question is where this huge workforce will go. there is no job openings compare. companies are finding all the way out with no excuse for employees.

  5. Sriram Vadlamani says

    @Sanket : Looks like I need go to a grammer school. I am always confused with affect and effect. In this case I just replaced it just before it went to press. So, you are right.
    BTW it is not ‘grammer’ it is ‘grammar’.

  6. diduknow says

    One needs to look closely at the definition of “temps”. After announcing over the past years hiring figures in excess of 20k people it is simply not possible to end up with 40 k temps.

    Perhaps interns and maybe the definition of interns is rather very loose. “everyone who has joined in the past 2 years” Guessing ofcourse

  7. Sanket says

    1. As per reports in the newspapers, out of the 100000 strength of Infosys, about 40000 are temporary staff so effectively, Infosys headcount is only 60000 out of which 2100 is a significant proportion
    2. It should be “effects of recession” and not “affect of recession”

  8. kamal says

    Next wave will be dominated by upcoming startups … Startups that will survive this economic turmoil, streamline their products and work towards making better utilities instead of pure outsourcing….

  9. Sriram Vadlamani says

    @Kamal : Who do you think will dominate the next wave? I am guessing HCL. What’s your guess?

  10. kamal says

    its because of their flawed models of outsourcing.. they still have time to improvise.. next wave of industrial transformation may ruin their chances of dominating the market..

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