Starting out as a GET of L&T Construction (erstwhile L&T ECC), goose bumps and nostalgia is what I experienced when I picked up the April 2024 edition of Fortune India Magazine. This edition has a cover page titled L&T’s Tech Avatar.
The article outlines, how Larsen and Toubro (L&T), India’s leading Engineering & Construction identified a dual opportunity in the digital sphere: firstly, to digitally overhaul its operations, harnessing transformative technologies to enhance its existing strengths; and secondly, to view digital innovation as a new avenue for business growth that could redefine its future offerings.
When I was reading through the article, every word from Jaspreet Bindra’s book “The Tech Whisperer” was echoing in my ears. Bindra underscores three objectives that need to be essentially met in a digital transformation initiative viz. re-thinking Business Models, re-imagining Customer Experience and re-doing culture and mindsets of the people. Bindra calls this as the “Holy Trinity” of digital transformation.
In his book, Jaspreet Bindra writes that only the leadership possesses the ability to craft and disseminate a powerful vision for the future across the organization. Following this, individuals in middle and lower ranks have the capacity to turn this vision into reality. Managers have the capability to reengineer processes, while workers can adopt new work methods. Moreover, all members of the organization can uncover innovative approaches to fulfil the vision. That is what L&T seems to have done!
Secondly, “Rome was not built in a day” and this is where nostalgia comes into play. L&T has always had robust documented processes, knowledge management and measurable operational KPIs that were ingrained systematically into the execution. We as GETs never had a challenge to come upto speed on this. Thirdly, L&T has also been an avid adopter of information technology since the era of mainframes, continuously updating its internal systems in line with advancements in IT.
Such a mammoth effort to its credit, it is no surprise that there are two cases of 15 pages each on ISB’s Centre for Learning and Management practice under category, OB & Leadership.