With the appointment of Abidali Z Neemuchwala as CEO of Wipro, three of India's top five software exporters - Infosys, Wipro and Tech Mahindra - have opted for outside leaders, a sign that companies are starting to recognise that some of their big internal leadership bets are not working, experts said. This is despite companies such as Infosys building fancy, Greek-styled, multi-million dollar leadership institutes that aim to groom and churn out hundreds of world-class leaders every year. "There is strong evidence, globally, that under normal conditions, promoting an insider to the top job is by far the safer choice, but at times of significant industry change and disruption, bringing in a CEO from the outside yields better results despite the cultural risks," said Ravi Venkatesan, chairman of Bank of Baroda and a board member at Infosys. "You need that external perspective to rethink the rules of the game.