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It starts with about how N.R. Narayana Murthy, ex-CEO and Chairman of Infosys sets up Infosys
Leadership Institute in 2001 to develop leaders of tomorrow, not just for Infosys but also for the IT
services industry.This paper talks about and criticizes the 3-tier model of leadership adopted at
Infosys by Narayana Murthy. Unfortunately, after years of average business performance and
several highprofile exits, including exit of the director of its leadership institute, in 2013 Infosys
board picked its first non-founder CEO from outside and the activities at the leadership institute was
scaled down.
1. Survey results with employees of different organizations show that employees perceive a
need for mentoring and managerial support for the purposes of career development and
self-improvement and it is believed succession planning activities can contribute to this
capability development (Kim, 2003).
2. a 2009 survey by the National Association of Corporate Directors in the US revealed that
43% of US public companies had no formal CEO succession plan and 61% had no emergency
CEO replacement plan (Zheng and Rajagopalan, 2004b).
The authors then talk about Prevalent Frameworks for Succession Planning:
a. Focus is on key areas and positions at different hierarchies corporate and divisions
b. Focus is on the identification and development of talent for the longer term perspective of
the organization; explore externally when necessary
c. Use systematic process to assess candidates based on performance against established
competencies; integrate succession planning with other OD/ HR disciplines
Concluding the paper:
Infosys 3-tier leadership development initiative had some of the drawbacks identified in this paper,
most notably, disconnect with companys future direction and lack of strong linkage with desired
capabilities of the future leaders. The boards choice of an outside CEO, overlooking internal
potential candidates worked out in the best interest of the organization(Infosys). Such
ineffectiveness of prevailing leadership development and succession planning in Indian organization
calls for adopting a more comprehensive approach outlined in the framework discussed in this
paper. The key features of the proposed framework are: (a) two-pronged focus in succession
planning both on leadership succession at corporate level as well as divisional level succession that
is more technical in nature; (b) strong linkage with corporate strategy and business strategies at
divisional level; and (c) interfacing with other OD/ HR functions like hiring, performance
management, employee communication and board engagement. The fact that succession planning is
a lot more than identifying replacements of key positions and the effective succession planning
requires interdisciplinary effort of HR team, leadership and line management are the fundamental
propositions behind the framework.
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Its a brilliantly done paper to analyze the prevailing succession planning process, basically its
drawbacks and the need to link it with organizational strategy. As most firms who practice success
planning, keep it in isolation. The case study of Infosys is very just to point this fact out, where
succession planning was done wrongly.
This paper is descriptive type, and it takes up the case study. The source of data being a case study
and also the secondary sources of data.
The Review of literature is done with study of appropriate past papers such as of Beeson, 1998,
2000; Carroll (2015); Citrin and Ogden (2010); Zheng and Rajagopalan, 2004b; Naveen (2006); and
Kransdorf, 1996.
The deficiencies of the prevailing succession planning framework are pointed out and a new
framework is being pointed out, Hence it is a good paper which is dealing with Analyzing the
problem, and then suggesting the solution. Hence it is a good research(paper), as it could add to the
domain knowledge and it follows scientific process.
Submitted By:
Ph.D (HR-I)