India Lacks Quality Market Research Firms, Says Narayana Murthy Murthy said competence and values are two essentials one should look for while hiring for top leadership positions

By Teena Jose

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

"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. This leads to the entrepreneurs who have created unicorns to overestimate the market opportunity and investments in venture capital funds as well," said Murthy in a statement.

While speaking at an event organized by Symbiosis, Murthy further pointed out that companies spend much more than what they should because of this and then wake up to reverses in the business. This can lead to worse business conditions. In his words, "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."

To validate the statement, Murthy shared how he had to shut his first company, Softronics, founded in the late 1970s in Pune, due to lack of market research itself.

Agreeing to the fact 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.

Market research firms gather and analyze data about customers, competitors, distributors, and other actors and forces in the marketplace, which is considered to be the most prominent part in doing a business.

As per media reports, Narayana Murthy also spoke about the widely discussed term Moonlighting, at the Asia Economic Dialogue in Pune, an event organised by the foreign ministry on February 23.

Murthy reportedly said that, "Please don't fall into this trap of I will moonlight, I will do work from home, I will come to office three days in a week."

Teena Jose

News Desk Reporter with Entrepreneur India

Teena is a post graduate in financial journalism. She has an avid interest in content creation, digital media and fashion.
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