Published On:Thursday 3 May 2012
Finally Infosys decided to use cash and bank balance; to enter into FMCG sector
Men fairness cream will be the first to launch
Infosys, most reputed and second largest IT company in India plans to enter into new horizons as the cash and bank balance became the headache for its management. Irritated with the criticisms that Infosys has no guts to use its huge cash and bank balance on the balance sheet, management decided to enter into different field which will have a big captive consumer.
"We are inspired by Wipro which is also an IT company. Wipro has consumer division also which is doing fine for the company. It manufactures and markets various soaps and variety of FMCG products," said S. Gopalakrishnan, Executive Co-Chairman of the company. He said that Wipro has a successful track record of managing FMCG business.
S. Gopalakrishnan, popularly known as Kris said "We appointed Mr. Arindam Chaudhuri, tan expert to find out how to go into new areas of business as there is no opportunity left for us to invest in IT sector. He came out with a robust plan which solidly impressed us. The revenue model is so strong that our expected return on capital employed, which was the major reason why we didn't move to take over any company will sustain, or best case it will improve only."
Kris said "Actually, management thought to add staff to manufacture the FMCG products, however, Mr. KV Kamath, our Chairman said that we should ask existing employees to work in double shifts. He enlightened us that a second shift at current salaries with free fairness product offerings will ensure optimum utilisation of resources."
Talking about the products, he said "We shall first introduce range male fairness products which we shall first test with our employees and then launch in the markets." Infosys' employee strength is almost 150000 employees. He also told that the employee strength can be the captive consumer also.
The company's CEO and MD S. D. Shibulal said "We are astonished by our new venture. See its simple maths, even if our half of employees buy range of products worth 400 rupees per month we can easily generate Rs36Cr of revenue."
Shibulal said "Interestingly, we shall outsource all the manufacturing work from our BPO division which will work in second shift while any chemical reactions from the products will be solved by services division."
IIPM think tank, Arindam Chaudhari who provided the detailed project report to Infosys said "Actually, I was against those who firmly criticised Infosys for not using its huge cash, growing at a sloath like pace and happy by earning income from fixed deposits and mutual funds. They don't have sense while criticizing anybody. While Infosys has reached the levels where they can't invest in IT, I thought presenting a detailed plan on FMCG product development."
Infosys employees, however, gave negative reactions and they are not very interested in working 8 hours more for some bull$hit fairness products.
B. Ramalingam, a software engineer said "This idea sucks and we know this can come from the brain of Arindam Chaudhari. We are neither interested in bullshit range of fairness products nor to work in double shift."
Finally, the talks were that Infosys is on the verge to enter ICICI Bank's double growth strategy by extending the work hours for employees.
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