Stepping into Naik's shoes won't be easy: Subrahmanyan

Set to take over the reins of engineering major Larsen & Toubro, S N Subrahmanyan today said stepping into A M Naik's shoes will be a difficult task, but he is all geared up to take the business forward.
"It is an onerous responsibility of managing a complex and diversified and very uniquely positioned organisation. And stepping into the shoes of the legend like Naik is definitely not easy and is not something which one would look forward to in a business-as-usual manner," Subrahmanyan told PTI here.
Naik, who has served for over 52 years, became CEO and Managing Director in 1999 and was appointed chairman in 2003. He will now become L&T's non-executive Chairman, effective October 1.

Subrahmanyan said Naik had identified him 12 years back and he was practically being mentored by Naik in the last three years.
"I also had the chance to work with him extremely closely in the last two-and-a-half to three years and therefore much of the organisation business system, etc, I have been privy to," Subrahmanyan said.
"Of course one cannot say one is an expert as Naik has been there for long time and started the businesses, so he knows much better than me, but one has to get into some of that (responsibility)," he added.

Subrahmanyan further said L&T's businesses already have stability and growth, and "we just have to see how to take it forward".

"We already have our five years strategy plan in place where many of the thought processes within the businesses have been captured. We have identified the businesses that we need to exit as well as those which are potential growth drivers," he said.
In August last year, L&T announced its five years strategic plan that will help the company achieve its target revenues of Rs 2 lakh crore by 2021.
"We have identified businesses like infrastructure, realty and services business like IT and engineering services as potential growth drivers. These are the ones which have been our growth drivers and cash cows for the last few years so we will continue to drive at this pace," he said.

Besides, the company has also identified businesses like Water Management, Smart World, Communication and Digital, among others as other growth drivers, he said.
In the 'Smart World' business segment, Subrahmanyan said, the company has already undertaken various projects including providing security solutions in Mumbai, creating smart infrastructure in Jaipur, developing smart city in Nagpur, Hyderabad, Pune, among others.