An experiment in light expression

Last Monday I visited the Infosys campus on Hosur Road, Bangalore (Image courtesy Diomidis Spinellis from http://www.spinellis.gr - Thanks Diomidis!).

In the two hours I spent on campus after my meeting, I met an old industry friend, Shan who heads the User Experience part of Infosys’s Communications & Design Group (housed in the much talked about pyramid), walked around observing the architecture, and doing a snapshot ethnography of campus.

In walking around, I was trying to notice the subtleties of the company that have made it a valued employer of choice in India, a super brand internationally, and the bellwether of India’s IT services industry. Here are some of my random observations on what makes Infosys tick:

1. Infosys has modeled its campus strongly along the lines of any top tier American university campus (Stanford comes to mind), and some of the American tech pioneers (Microsoft comes to mind). While most of the structures are indistinguishable, some, like the CDG Pyramid, the Terminal Food Court, Building 9, the lake and fountain areas, and overall, the wonderfully landscaping stand out as examples of good work. I was stuck that ironically, the Infosys campus seemed to have more ‘soul’ than most multinational campuses in India - while considering the scorching growth of the technology sector in India, most companies have reconciled to having drab, grayish white buildings with cheap glass facades. Infosys certainly gets the importance of having an inspiring physical campus.

2. Looking around at the Infosys staff walking around on campus, especially in looking at the old-timers, I got a sense of confidence, well being, and a sense of purpose and even more so - of people having been around for a while. Because of Infosys’ presence in industry for over 25 years, there is an interesting demographic distribution – I saw many people in their 30s and 40s on campus, lots of women employees, and lots of Euro-American or Asian expats. Incidentally the Infosys internship program has been one of the most sought after program for international students in overseas universities looking at good experience and the ‘India flavor’ on their resumes. Infosys seems to get the urgent, burning need for cultural and conceptual diversity to drive innovation and that one has to create a global workplace IN India to foster that global diversity.
3. The Infosys focus on ‘care & nurturing’ areas, including the standardization of processes, the consistency of processes, the fairness of the compensation and career pathing, and above all, the diversity and imaginativeness of the food courts is noticeable. Among others, I noticed a world class bakery run by a Frenchman (try the cinnamon rolls and croissants there), and a plethora of breakfast and lunch options, all dished out at very subsidized rates and with the quickness that the Indian IT industry is famous for. Certainly no one goes to office to have great cafeteria food, but the extra soft touches were visible.
My ‘external-observer’ observation of all the designers, usability professionals and other ‘creatives’ I met at the pyramid was that most of them are the kind of people you’d like to have a great conversation with over coffee, and in general work with. There is a great deal of diversity within the group – from a chap who designs world class Annual Reports to a chap who redesigned Infosys’ award winning corporate Intranet, to a dedicated HR lady whose job is to keep the design staff inspired and motivated. The glasswork in the pyramid is also quite intriguing (though I hear complaints about the greenhouse effect!), and the rooms – named after luminaries such as Steve Jobs and Spielberg house posters, books and more books – always a peek into the minds of the founders of the design group.

Great thoughts and some vision that went into all this! I think more technology companies should take a leaf out of Infosys’ book in terms of some of the elements of its campus, its architecture, and of course its spanking cleanliness :-)

Trackback URI | Comments RSS