Though the sudden resignation of Infosys Chief Financial Officer M.D. Ranganath who had replaced Rajiv Bansal was quite unexpected, experts said it might only have a short-term impact. They said the company of the size of Infosys will move ahead without any significant setbacks.
Though Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy was quick to point out that Ranganath's departure was an irreplaceable loss for the company which is at a critical juncture, experts said that many other senior level executives within Infosys might be ready to replace Ranganath. Murthy had said in his statement that Ranganath had been instrumental in raising investor confidence in the company during the last five years by managing costs and margins.
However, industry insiders had a different opinion. “Ranganath was an old timer with the company and his sudden exit was certainly not expected. He had joined as the CFO during the time of Sikka and had been a very important senior executive but the company of the size of Infosys will not face any major setback. In fact, there is a huge pool of qualified senior-level executives within Infosys who can possibly replace him at the top level. Maybe, his style of functioning differed with that of CEO Salil Parekh," said Amit Chandra, IT analyst at Mumbai-based HDFC Securities. "Broadly, a CFO of this level has already achieved a lot in his career. The exit has more to do with the difference of opinion in his style of functioning and that of the CEO. Even when Sikka left it was a temporary setback but then things started moving ahead at Infosys and now, there is hardly any impact on the company.”
He added that Infosys is a process-oriented organisation with lakhs of employees on its roll. While there could be an impact for a short period, including stock price taking a hit, but it will all be a temporary affair and nothing more than that.
Experts such as Alok Shende of Mumbai-based Ascentius Consulting said that the leadership capital at major IT services providers was so wide and deep that any churn of any senior-level executive, barring the CEO, should not have a material impact on the firm. He, however, felt that the departure of the CFO was a few quarters after Parekh took over. “What has piqued the interest in this development is the fact that an executive who has worked with Infosys for 17 long years has quit less than three quarters after the arrival of a new CEO. That being said, it is too premature to derive any insights out of the move of Infosys' CFO,” remarked Shende.