Will speak less and work more, says S N Subrahmanyan

Subrahmanyan, who will take charge as L&T's CEO and MD is not expecting any drastic change at L&T

S N Subrahmanyan, who will take charge as L&T’s chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) effective from July this year, speaks to Amritha Pillay on the challenges ahead of him and how he does not expect any drastic changes, both in the team and work strategy, at L&T.

In your new role as the company’s MD and CEO, which would be the main areas of focus to begin with?

Ours is a well-planned succession and Naik (A M Naik, current chairman) has been grooming me. In the last two-three years we have had a very close working relationship. We concluded our strategic plan for 2020-21, so, as such, all the plans have been laid out and Naik is available as non-executive chairman. Therefore, in my view, it is stability, it is growth and it is the way L&T would be. I don’t think anything different will happen from what you see right now.

So it would be business as usual for you?

One can never say in business business is usual, so I would put it as it would be the way L&T would do it.

What are the challenges ahead of you?

We have been going through some tough times from the market point of view. Infrastructure, capital goods and engineering space have been seeing headwinds in the last few years. Today, many private sector players are highly leveraged and capital spending is not occurring in the manner it ought to. Issues like regulations and right of ways are still hindering a fast movement of infrastructure projects. On the capital goods side, the 'Make in India' initiative has still not achieved its full momentum and will take time. Some amount of nationalism is also being seen in some of the countries where the IT and engineering orders come from. When you have size and scale, you need to move faster and need to be more aggressive and get growth from other areas. Our job is to find solutions.

The company has an ambitious strategic plan for 2020-21. Analysts remain sceptical of the group meeting its current financial year targets. How achievable, according to you, would be the strategic plan?

We are broadly on track with the strategic plan. Some of the businesses have gone ahead of the plan, some have not, which is bound to be the case when you are a diversified conglomerate. As such, we are positive and we feel we have a good traction.

Will you form a new team to assist you in the new role?

There will not be any major change. All my colleagues are there, they have been groomed, we continue to be there. One among the best has been chosen to be the leader and we continue to look forward in the same manner.

Would you be putting in more working hours from now?

I will try to be more efficient in whatever I do and the time that I spend. I will try to speak less and work more and try to be more efficient.