Narayana Murthy's 5 tips for success

However, we were certain of one thing, and that is our value system. Should it be revenues, profits, market capitalization?

No, we said it should be none of those. We will seek respect from every one of the stakeholders. My view was if we sought respect we'd automatically do the right thing by each of them. We'd satisfy our customers, be fair to our employees, and follow the finest principles with respect to investors, we would not violate laws, and, finally, we'd make a difference to society.

And then, I said, automatically you'll get revenues and profits and all that.

It is simply because we are becoming more and more relevant to our customers and we are having greater and greater impact.

Why? For two fundamental reasons. We have helped our customers reduce the cycle time in designing and implementing new systems that reflect the changing marketplace and the new business rules. By reducing cycle time, we have ensured that the people in the corporation that use these IT systems are that much more enthusiastic about the flexibility of the corporation to keep pace with the changes in the marketplace.

The second thing we have done is we're able to give more value for money. Both of these things matter a lot.

There are five elements of success. They are:

Openness to learn: Openness to subordinate your ego to take ideas from others.

Second, meritocracy: The best ideas are adopted and implemented using data to arrive at the best decision.

Third, speed: Assuring you do things faster compared to yesterday and last quarter.

Fourth, imagination: You continually bring better ideas and better innovation to the table.

And finally, excellence in execution: That is implementation of these great ideas with a higher level of excellence today than yesterday.

I tell my colleagues that there is no guarantee we will be in business five or 10 years from now. The only guarantee is the opportunity for us to use these five attributes.

If we embrace them, we'll be in play five and 10 years from now. But the day we forget these, we'll disappear like dew on a sunny morning.