Growth is painful. Change is painful. But, nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you do not belong.
N. R. Narayana Murthy
Nobody is bothered about an institution more than its alumni.
When you run a part of the relay and pass on the baton, there is no sense of unfinished business in your mind. There is just the sense of having done your part to the best of your ability. That is it. The hope is to pass on the baton to somebody who will run faster and run a better marathon.
A great leader also has the ability to make people an inch taller in his presence.
I have always looked at my competencies before accepting any responsibility.
I am what we call a 'karma yogi' in Sanskrit. A karma yogi is somebody who believes in data. I collect a lot of data.
Effective use of technology is important to deliver healthcare. By leveraging technology, you can bring down lack of access and cost of healthcare.
Entrepreneurship is all about an idea that creates differentiated business value to one's customers. You must be able to convince your customers about the benefits that association with you or your products will give them. People are ready to pay if they are convinced about your services or products.
Leading by example is the most powerful advice you can give to anybody.
Leadership is about doing the right thing, even if it going against a vast number of naysayers and mediocre people.
I do not believe in any legacy. The past is dead and gone.
The future of any corporation is as good as the value system of the leaders and followers in the organization.
Engineering or technology is all about using the power of science to make life better for people, to reduce cost, to improve comfort, to improve productivity, etc.
Investment in training is a huge necessity for knowledge-based corporations.
If longevity is the best index to measure a company, a basic requirement is the ability of the corporation to generate new and new leaders.
Entrepreneurship is all about deferred gratification.
I think people like Bill Gates, who have given away enormous sums of money, are shining examples for all of us to follow.
Even if a company is taken private, at some stage people want to make it public.
When you are in business for a long time, you go through good times and bad times. When you go through bad times, you learn to control costs, satisfy customers better, satisfy employees better and become more transparent. Therefore, you build character in the company.
I've always enjoyed mathematics. It is the most precise and concise way of expressing any idea.
Even the most dishonest officer would want to be seen as a role model for his children.
I think there are opportunities outside India as well as in India. In fact, some of the largest projects that most Indian software companies are doing are in India.
Today, the biggest bottleneck to the growth of a corporation is availability of good talent.
The principle of democracy is all about delegation of power by the vast majority of citizens through a few chosen representatives chosen on merit and competence.
It's very important to learn quick lessons from your failures, very important to recognize symptoms of failure pretty early, and it is very, very important to not to be attached too much to the idea - you have to know when to give up an idea.
My personal view is that organisations have a capacity to throw up extraordinary leaders to suit the occasion.
My passion is to create a better society for our future citizens.
Kumar Mangalam Birla is one of the most respected business persons.
Any mechanism that will ensure benefits to consumer, any mechanism that will ensure that we do not waste food grains, any mechanism that helps the poorest of the poor is a welcome step.
It is a well-known fact that bringing in technologies in retail sector is good for consumers.
Mahatma Gandhi was someone who demonstrated the tremendous power of leadership by example.
I have always focused on the bottom line.
In order to improve healthcare, we'll have to spend more on it, increase accountability and decentralize services, enforce standards and reinstate people's faith in it.
It's well proved economics that if a country which is rich and a country that is poor come together in global trade, sooner or later the standard of living of the poor country will go up towards that of the rich country.
If England became a world power, it was because of the industrial revolution.
Rahul Gandhi is very idealistic and a very decent human being. He has real concerns for the downtrodden.
I have no desire to enter politics. Because I am not suited for that.
Indian IT corporations have made work in the U.S. much more efficient by enhancing their productivity and quality of work. We have helped to add sufficient value to the corporations in the U.S.
I think every country has to recognize its competitive advantage and liberate its strengths to be a partner in global trade, and that's the only way you can survive and succeed.
Every company has to identify what I call its strategic resources, and make sure that it grabs as much of its strategic resources as possible.
To me, patriotism is about working ethically and wholeheartedly in our chosen field.
All developmental activities for the common man such as education, healthcare, shelter and food distribution should be handled by reputed private sector institutions. It should be a competitive market in order to prevent the formation of monopolies.
I think, my own personal view is there should be higher and higher levels of autonomy; government should not interfere in setting up colleges, in running colleges. The market, the society will decide which is a good university, which is not a good university, rather than government mandating.
I think, at the end of the day, you have to reduce friction to businesses, ideally to zero, so that more and more entrepreneurs can create more and more jobs with higher and higher disposable income.
I think India has several advantages in the knowledge sector, in the software sector.
Often times I have been asked about the attributes for success, and I have said that you need two attributes for succeeding as an entrepreneur: one, courage, second, luck.
Infosys is an absolute meritocracy. Even in a meritocracy, other things being equal, you have to give opportunity to the more experienced candidate.
I want Infosys to be a company which is globally respected and in where people belonging to different nationalities, races and religious beliefs will work with intense competition but utmost courtesy, dignity and co-operation in adding greater value to our stakeholders day after day.
Science is about unravelling nature.
If the U.S. became the undisputed superpower that it is today, it was primarily because of its technology, whether it is in transportation, agriculture, high-tech industry, medicine, etc.
