Infosys has built a powerful brand in the IT world through a dedicated team that monitors its brand health and ensures the brand grows from strength to strength. This is done through soft tools that create a halo around the brand, rather than big advertising budgets. The brand helps Infosys get invited to bid on more deals and obtain repeat business from existing customers. Behind the scenes, Infosys measures its brand perception regularly and has seen improvements in awareness, fewer people saying they don't know the brand, and more people having a positive perception of Infosys.

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BUILDING BRAND
INFOSYS
A dedicated team makes sure the information technology brand grows
from strength to strength. Here’s how Bhupesh Bhandari & Kirtika Suneja
he brand is rarely seen in the the country and abroad, and it gets work it grows from strength to strength. The
T
mass media, makes do with place, transparency and governance tools employed are soft in nature and seek
minimal advertising budgets, awards with unfailing regularity. Its cam- to create a halo around the brand. No big
operates in a sector that runs puses are world class. A large chunk of its bucks spent below the line, no media
the risk of turning into a com- stock is held by employees. blitzkrieg - the whole effort is to work on
modity and is still worth almost Rs 37,000 That's the public face - what investors, the conscience of stakeholders like cus-
crore. Infosys is a powerful brand in the associates, analysts and employees get to tomers, partners, shareholders, employ-
world of information technology. Its see. Behind the scenes, there works a ded- ees and the society. “Infosys 1.0 raised the
founders like NR Narayana Murthy and icated team that regularly monitors standard for delivery predictability,
Nandan Nilekani enjoy iconic status in Infosys' brand health and makes sure that financial transparency and corporate gov-
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one hump at a time. We have moved
ahead of other Indian brands in the busi-
ness and are in the second level after the
big spenders like IBM, Accenture,
Deloitte and Hewlett Packard. In 2004, we
were at the third level,” says he.
There is noticeable improvement,
says Jha, in Infosys' brand perception as
well. The company measures it on six
parameters: Knows my business, has
solutions to my business problem, is a
technology leader, has a quality focus, is
reliable and delivers on promise, and
works like a partner. Respondents can say
don't know, not there, getting there,
always the best or the best there is. Jha
says that there are two noticeable shifts
between end-2004 and now: One, fewer
people now say don't know. This means
that more and more people now have
some perception of Infosys. And two,
there is an improvement in the number of
people with a positive perception. But
this is a gradual process. Jha admits that
movement in perception is sluggish when
compared to awareness.
Brand pull
One question that needs to be answered
here is that why does an information tech-
nology company need to develop a
brand? The brand comes handy in two
ways. One, it shortens the journey to the
bidding table. Companies that have a
strong brand are more likely to be called
by prospective customers than those with
lesser brands. Those companies thus
need to spend a lot of money on marketing
themselves. This game, Infosys knows, is
a bottomless pit. Big names in the busi-
ness like IBM, Accenture and Hewlett
Packard have marketing budgets that run
ernance,” says Infosys Technologies' head up the current assignment at Infosys. into hundreds of millions of dollars. Then
of global branding and corporate market- Since end-2004, the Bangalore-head- there are others like Capgemini and
ing, Aditya Nath Jha. “The next stop is tal- quartered company gets a quarterly Logica which spend tens of millions of
ent management, scalability and sustain- health check up of its brand done. dollars. Infosys, which has always been
ability - how do I paint the enterprise of According to Jha, Infosys' unaided brand sharply focused on the bottom-line of its
tomorrow.” Jha's choice as the brand man- recall in the US (the largest market for business, cannot match these numbers.
ager is interesting. He studied at the information technology in the world) has So, it has no option but to work on its
Indian Institute of Technology, improved from zero then to 8 per cent in brand. Infosys monitors all unsolicited
Kharagpur, and worked as the creative March 2010, while the aided recall has invitation to deals in excess of $8 million
head of Ogilvy. He wrote the script for two shot up from 18 per cent to 70 per cent. per annum. Jha does not share the details
soap operas - Aflatoon and Wagle Ki The survey, carried out by Ronin, is con- as it is sensitive information but discloses
Duniya II - and ran a start-up in the educa- ducted not amongst CTOs but amongst that the increase from 2005-06 to now has
tion vertical (“The model worked, the ordinary people. Jha, of course, is pleased been well over eight times.
business failed,” says he.) before he took with the results. “We believe in crossing Two, a brand helps get repeat business
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from the same customer. The business brands than their individual products. world” - a take on the book of a similar
logic here is that getting a new customer Since the health of the parent brand has name by Thomas Friedman who was
on board is up to six times more expen- occupied centrestage, it is important for inspired by his long conversations with
sive than getting an order from an existing companies to nurture their brand image Nilekani. So, what's the impact? Jha reels
customer. It is important for information with care. In Infosys' case, this perhaps off a string of numbers: Subscribers of
technology companies like Infosys to also stems from the firm belief of the Infosys blogs from the Fortune 500 com-
leverage its customers for another reason. founders of the company that they will panies have more than doubled in the
Most customers start by outsourcing chase not revenue or profit but respect. last two years, while their downloads
peripheral work. Those who stay with a To this end, the points of action identi- from the Infosys website have increased
customer one day graduate from low-val- fied by Infosys are: Integrity & transparen- 68 per cent. Between April 2010 and
ue peripheral jobs to value-added core cy, fairness (prejudices of the past should April 2009, YouTube (it has populated
work. “Between 92 per cent and 97 per not affect business decisions), leadership the video-sharing website with short
cent of our revenue in any quarter comes by example, customer delight and pursuit films and interviews of its leaders) view-
from repeat business,” Jha informs with of excellence. Infosys has got several ership has gone up 1.6 times, slideshare
quiet pride. awards for integrity and transparency. downloads 2.8 times and Twitter follow-
The traditional role of a brand has Recently, it was voted the “best managed ership 12 times. Also, says Jha, there has
been to fetch a premium over rivals. Does company” in India by investors and ana- been an increase in the ranks of evange-
its brand help Infosys command a better lysts across Asia in a poll conducted by lists who talk positively about the
price than others in the market place? Jha Finance Asia , a financial magazine. IR Infosys brand and recommend it to oth-
says it does, and this gets reflected in the Global Rankings and MZ Consult ranked ers. These could be customers, public
company's superior net profit margins it amongst the best companies in Asia- speakers, analysts or even journalists.
(27.55 per cent for 2009-10) than rivals Pacific and China in the categories of Most analysts believe Infosys has
like TCS (23.62 per cent) and Wipro (17 investor relations website, financial dis- made all the right moves. “Infosys wants
per cent). “Brand-building is a key part of closure procedures and corporate gover- to make its brand visible in the market.
Infosys' strategy, and I think it is able to nance practices. For ten years in a row, And it has improved because that is the
command a price premium because of way the company pitches itself,” says
this. The tools it has used well are public
relations, investor relations, analyst rela-
INFOSYS FEELS THE Punish Mishra, engagement director at
consulting firm Everest Group. But some
tions and, in the past few years, thought
leadership,” says ex-Infosys hand and for-
DIFFERENTIATOR feel there is still an unfinished agenda - it
needs to do more in terms of succession
mer Wipro chief marketing officer Jessie FOR THE BRAND COULD LAY planning. “The perception is that the
Paul who is now the managing director of succession line is not clearly demarcated
Paul Writer Strategic Services, a market- IN HOW IT BEHAVES and the new CEO may not be of the same
ing consultancy. Paul calls Infosys a “sur- public stature as the old ones,” says an
round” brand which relies on the sur- analyst who is not willing to be named.
round aspects of its business to position The Wall Street Journal has named it the Still others point out that branding is a
itself. most admired Indian company. What game most information technology com-
Still, Jha knows that brand premiums about customer delight and pursuit of panies have woken up to. “Most of these
are down across categories including excellence? How do Jha and his team companies now are a brand persona in
information technology as the search for measure it? “Our number of defects per themselves. For instance, Cognizant is a
value has intensified amongst customers. kiloline of code,” says Jha “is way below deep-rooted company with offerings
Much of what information technology the published benchmark of CMM Level from consulting to maintenance, while
companies like Infosys do is standard- 5 companies.” TCS is one that brings big deals, size,
ised. In the initial years, Infosys tried to scale and pricing on the table. So, brand-
create a differentiator with its global Communicate to engage ing has gone up for the industry has a
delivery model - it promised to go to any This is not to say that Infosys does not whole,” notes Alok Shende, principal
location where the costs were the lowest, communicate. But it is different, says analyst, Ascentius Consulting.
which invariably was India. But others Jha, from mainline brand communica- At the moment, the exercise seems
have caught up. Even foreign-owned tion. “We have moved from information to have paid off for Infosys. The valua-
companies like IBM and Accenture have to engagement. The new media is all tion of Infosys, the brand, has improved
a huge presence in the country. Now, about conversation.” Thus, the Infosys from Rs 14,153 crore in 2005 to Rs
Infosys feels, the differentiator for the brass can be found at the World 36,907 crore in 2010. It was 23.2 per
brand could lay in how it behaves. This Economic Forum talking to business cent of the company's market capitali-
has, in fact, become a global trend. leaders from across the world. The com- sation five years ago; it stands at 24.6
Companies like Microsoft, Google and pany has also sought to engage with per cent now. Jha and his team can take
even Toyota and Samsung are bigger opinion makers on the subject of “the flat some credit for that.
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