No Business As Usual; The Game Has Changed

Companies that emerge from this crisis with solid finances, a resilient supply chain, skilled workers and the capacity to analyse data will be well-placed to seize new opportunities

- S.N. Subrahmanyan,

Among the few books that are interesting and inspirational, Alfred Sloan’s My Years with General Motors lays out his brilliant managerial practices and provides insights into the new consumer economy that he and General Motors created over half a century ago. An entire era has gone by since, and we find ourselves in a situation that is uncannily similar to all great crises. And his words uttered in 1941 hold so true even today — “It is astonishing what you can do when you have a lot of energy, ambition and plenty of ignorance.”

The lasting value of Sloan’s book is not really his dream, but the ambition, detail, and scale with which he built GM as a consummate organisation. One of the tenets he believed in and which truly forms the backbone of L&T as well is the power of creativity. The greatest thrill that life offers is to create, to construct, to develop something useful. Too often we fail to recognise and pay tribute to the creative spirit. It is that spirit that creates jobs and adds value to life. This has also been the mantra that has been guiding this diversified, multi-disciplined engineering and construction giant that L&T has become today.

Engineering and construction (E&C) companies are used to cyclical downturns. It is an extraordinarily difficult time, and calls for swift and thoughtful action to manage immediate crisis, stabilise supply chains and reinforce companies’ financial position to emerge from the crisis with a more solid foundation. We simply cannot afford a lack of clarity in any detail of the projects, the supply chains and the wider economy if one has to maintain cost-efficiency. These require the most accurate data available, typically detailed at a project level due to the bespoke nature of and contractual arrangements for each project.