Infosys, that symbol of India’s economic transformation, is in trouble; and the return of NR Narayana Murthy from his semi-retirement, as executive chairman Saturday, is a manifestation of how deep the problem might be.
 
Five blunt messages:
 
1)   The talk of professionalising the IT power house, curbing parivar-vaad a la Azim Premji, capping director ages at 70 etc, in India’s epitome of corporate governance, wasn’t all that credible.

Murthy, the chief founder, is back within two years of stepping back as chief mentor.

Not just that, he has his son, Rohan Murthy (the young man has an exceptional CV), as his executive assistant, a lowly designation for now, but leaving ample hint on what succession planning is going on in daddy’s mind.

2)  It isn’t as if Infy was a family affair before. The original founders stayed tightly together and an invisible glass ceiling has separated them from aam junta aspiring to be CEO & managing director. But with Murthy and Murthy now in saddle the glass just got more opaque and thicker too.

3)  The role of KV Kamath deserves attention. The man (disclaimer: I’m eternally indebted to him for he agreed to be my very first studio guest when we launched Zee Business in 1996 even though we were an eight-minute show and the interview wouldn’t have run for more than 180 seconds!) excels in fire fighting line none else.

When he brokered the division of the Ambani assets, Tony Jesudasan, a key satrap from Anil’s side, famously told journalists, “there’ve been only two major Partitions in India… (Kamath’s) is the second one!”

Clearly, the ICICI man has re-enacted that coup, this time convincing Murthy, the poster boy of Infy, to stake his life’s equity and return as executive chairman. Before that Kamath has quit as non-executive chairman which he was in what’s turned out to be a transitional arrangement.

That said, Kamath becomes what Infy has chosen to describe as lead independent director, whatever that means!

4)  Kamath’s Coup includes co-creation of another interesting designation: executive vice chairman, a job entrusted to old-timer S Gopalkrishnan.

So, Infy now has an executive chairman, an executive assistant to the executive chairman who is also the son of the executive chairman, and an executive vice chairman. The EVC, effective June 1, 2013, “would primarily focus on key client relationships and broader industry issues.” What does this leave for Murthy?

5)  Where does this super tier of executive leadership leave Infy’s officially designated chief executive? SD Shibulal, the hapless incumbent, hasn’t gone beyond a polite welcoming statement, but isn’t hard to guess that unlike having Kamath showing up only to chair his board, Shibulal now has a lot more hands-on bosses on site!

It is instructive to re-read and quote at some length what former core team member Mohan Das Pai recently wrote in the Business Today. The cover story, run under the headline, “Missing Murthy,” had Pai, who ran himself out in the race for CEO, writing: “In the last two years the company (Infy) did not have a proper management structure in place. In 1999, before the Nasdaq IPO (initial public offering), Infosys had a COO (chief operating officer) in Nandan Nilekani and NR Narayana Murthy was Chairman and CEO. In 2001, Nandan became the CEO and Kris Gopalakrishnan the COO. When Kris became CEO, Shibulal became COO. There were always two people sharing the responsibility. The COO handled operations while the CEO focused on finance, strategy, HR and sales. But in June 2011, when the board decided to appoint one of the founders as CEO, they did not appoint a COO. The entire burden of running the company fell on one person. It has not worked well. The burden fell on one person at a time of very rapid change in the company's strategy. Also, it was a period of reorganisation for Infosys and the marketplace, too, was hostile. Obviously, in the last two years the company has shown indifferent growth and the strategy has not been executed well. Until Murthy retired, Infosys understood the mark.”
 
Shibulal, a co-founder too in his own right, will have to take the punch on his nose rationalising that the company’s market cap has, in the ultimate analysis, shrunk to less than half of arch-rival TCS (Rs 290,000 crore).
 
Or will he quit after a decent gap?
 
No one can say.
 
The biggest question is beyond the personalities. It is whether Murthy still has the spunk to understand the game? Can he reinvent himself like a famous Mr Jobs did, or even Michael Dell attempted, both with entirely different results?
 
Clearly, the cheese has moved. In cricketing terms, is this a bit like BCCI desperate to get the mojo back, bringing Sachin Tendulkar back into Team India for ODIs and T20….with son Arjun Tendulkar as his partner.
 
Hmmm…actually, young Rohan has the most enviable of CVs already: Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Microsoft, just to name a few. But couldn’t he be EA to the CEO & MD instead?
 
I am not trying to pull the good men down! It’s just that there’s little to escape the fact that one of India’s most respected companies must deserve a little more than old wine in old bottles. Also, this irritating business of “Re 1 a month,” the compensation that Murthy Sr. will be paid, and his acceptance formulation, "This calling was sudden, unexpected, and most unusual. But, then, Infosys is my middle child, therefore, I have put aside my plans-in-progress and accepted this responsibility.”
 
The words are hard to believe even from the modern-day Yudhishthira of India Inc.
 
It would’ve been nicer if Murthy had spoken with a little more honesty about the backchannel at work before Saturday’s announcement. “Sudden, unexpected, and most unusual,” may well be the modern equivalent of “Ashvatthama hatho!”