India lacks quality market research firms: Narayana Murthy

Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy on Thursday said India lacks quality market research firms, which leads to over-estimation of the opportunity by unicorns and eventually reporting of huge losses.

"One of the lacunae in India at this point in time is that we do not have a company that specialises in quality market research," Murthy said.

This leads to the entrepreneurs who have created unicorns to overestimate the market opportunity and investments in venture capital funds as well, he added.

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Companies spend much more than what they should because of this and then wake up to reverses in the business, Murthy said while speaking at an event organised by Symbiosis International here.

"...the reality sinks in at the end of the year. Your revenues have not gone up, but the expenses have gone up, with the result you make huge losses," he noted.

Murthy made the point while underscoring the importance of market research during an interaction with students and said he had to shut his first company Softronics founded in the late 1970s in Pune itself due to lack of market research itself.

He said it is very important for companies to earn the respect of everybody and underlined that if it is successful, it will get support from all important stakeholders.

"If you become respectable, the government will treat you with considerable respect and you will not be a victim of any corruption, you will not have to do any unethical things," Murthy said.

Admitting that he had not been successful in hiring the right candidate from outside at the top leadership role in Infosys, Murthy said competence and values are two essentials one should look for while hiring for top leadership.

Murthy said cries like 'Mera Bharat Mahan' are mere words, and it is essential that all of us perform to ensure that we can achieve greater heights.

"If we want India to be an economic performer, if we want India to become powerful economically, there is only one medicine -- every Indian should work very hard, show discipline, act quickly as if there is no tomorrow...simply saying 'Mera Bharat Mahan' and all of that are mere words, they have no value," he said.

"The only cure for poverty, lack of respect (and)... being a country from the so-called 'south', is to perform,” Murthy said.

He asked the students to be good citizens, honest, seek justice for themselves and others, and do everything that raises the prestige of the country.

Murthy also said that he has yet to come across a single education institution which does not focus on rote learning. It is essential to inculcate critical thinking in the early years at school.

"As long as teachers will be continuing monologues in the class, we will not be doing the right thing," he said.