RE: 1st Annual get-together of the Electrical Group-What is L&T Culture?

Dear DN ,

I have not come across statement from any company saying :

: This is our Culture :

It can only be “surmised “ by searching for “ tell-tale words “ in incidences of the type narrated by UVR here

I have attempted to do this by highlighting ( in red colour ) such words at :

http://hcplntstory.blogspot.com/2016/03/ramesh-d-grover.html

Then , at the bottom of each episode , writing ( and highlighting with yellow ), what I considered to be L&T Corporate Culture

I urge colleagues who have a few minutes , to add their own “ comments “ at the bottom of each story

Hcp

From: Dr Devender Nath [mailto:devendernath45@gmail.com]
Sent: 07 July 2018 07:51
To: Devender Nath
Cc: Gopal Pujar; SAT GOEL; PL Negandhi; A D Sanil; A G Kale; A G Patkar; A K Ganguly; A M Deshmukh; A R Rajurkar; A V Dixit; A V Shenoy; A Y Divekar; Alok Rastogi; Amita Lele; Anand Pasarkar; Anil Choudhari; Arun Khandekar; Arun Kumta; Arun Singasane; Asgar Saikh; Atul Shah; B B Singh; B G Shah; B J Desai; B Ramachandran; B V R M Murty; Bharat Parikh; Bhaskar Narain; C D Patil; C G Karamchani; C K Melwani; C R Mistry; Chari; Clifford Burchell; Dilip Bhanage; Dinesh Shah; Eileen Albuquerque; G D Rao; Gajanan Phadke; Girish Handigol; Girish Trivedi; Guha Thakurtha; Gurudatt Kundapurkar; H R Khona; H T Mehta; Haridas Shenoy; Hemen Parekh; Hiro Hingorani; J J Shrikhande; Jairam Khambadkone; Jairam Menon; Jayant Jeste; Jayantibhai; John Monteiro; K A Shaikh; K M Raja Sundaram; K Narsaiah; K Natarajan; K P Kotwal; K R Iyer; K R Patel; K Rajendran; K S Ranganathan; K T Shah; K V Nair; Kamlakar Vaishampayan; Larry Neeff - L&T; Laurain Chauhan; Luis Vas; M B Meher; M D Palekar; M D Phatak; M J Paleja; M K Kaushik; M R Madnani; M Subramaniam; MVL Narasimhan; Madan Mandlekar; Milind Rajopadhye; N G Gehani; N M Kudalkar; N Ramachandran; N V Srinivasan; N Vasudevan; Naresh Berawala; Naresh Dhawan; P D Joshi; P G Pande; P H Sakhalkar; P J Pathak; P S Moharir; PCS Ratnam; Paras Kothary; Parvathy Seshan; Pervin Kapadia Bhasin; Pradeep Talpade; Prakash Shrungarkar; R A Panchal; R D Kulkarni; R Ganesh Rao; R I Mehta; R K Viswanathan; R M Yajurvedi; R Shivaji; R Sivaraman; Raj Kumar Seth; Rajat Desai; Rajeev Joshi; Rajendra Shirvaikar; Ramesh Somai; Rishikesh Joshi; Rita Rahimtoola; Rukmini Bhandary; S A Bhoir; S D Gore; S D Mande; S Hariharan; S K Mathur; S K Shukla; S K Todkar; S M Warde; S Rajagopal Naidu; S Ravikumar; S S Ghoshal; S S Manjeshwar; S V Subramaniam; S Vasudev; S W Patwardhan; S. N. Choubal; Sambamoorthy Thiagarajan; Sampada Inamdar; Sandeep Desai; Sandesh Darne; Sanjay Galwankar; Sanjeev Gholap; Santosh Pawaskar; Satish Dhoiphode; Simple Agarwal; Subhash Sood; Subhash Y Sathe; Suniti Desai; Suresh Deshmukh; Suresh Gandhi; Swapna Chaudary; T R Venkatraman; T Syamalan; Ullas Oza; V Aravind; V B Ulman; V H Iyer; V K Karekar; V M Patel; V M Pherwani; V Mohan; V R Swamy; V Raghavendran; V S Iyer Raju; Venu Account; Venugopal Menon; Vijay Lal; Vijay Shrawage; Vijay Shrawage; Vinod Sane; Viren Shah; Vivek Shiroor; Y K Gupta; Y R Boghani
Subject: Re: 1st Annual get-together of the Electrical Group-What is L&T Culture?

Dear All,

We did a small survey in a very small Group of Ex L&Tites in 2013.While in the process,I received a mail from UVR which I wish to share with you:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Vasudeva Rao <uvasurao@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2013 13:45
Subject: Re: What is this so called L&T Culture?

It is a nostalgic response provoked by DN's mail. 

I Have gone through with interest, the large No. of mails received by DN.

I am, quite impressed by these responses.In spite of my 4 decades of 

service I cannot think of anything worthwhile to add.They have covered it all.

There is however a couple of points I would like make. Not many may be 

interested in reading such a long mail.

Spirit of L&T.

Early fifties when I joined the company, Mr Holck Larsen used to meet youngsters 

once in 3 or 4 months, This, on the ground floor of L&T house where we had just 

moved in as a tenant & bought the property from ICI in 1965. This was to motivate 

us. Remember, vey few had heard or L&T then.

HHL was a very good fried of Dr.Homi Baba founder of Nuclear activity in India.

In one such meeting he announced that L&T will get into Nuclear Power business.

I, who  had been in the company only for a few months had the audacity of asking 

a tongue in cheek question,

Sir, giants like Westinghouse, GE,GHH and others who entered into the 

manufacture of nuclear equipment for power plants have all lost money. Why 

should we getting into that business.

I still recall his eyes looking into mine [ He & Mr.Toubro had interviewed me for 

the job]  and saying " young man, India must have nuclear power  generation 

plants If not L&T who-else?"

From then on,''If not L&T who else" became my manthra. Whenever I faced a 

tough situation--& there were many-I said to myself "If not L&T who else?"

Examples aplenty. Bahai Temple, just to name one. Sophisticated  equipment for 

Nuclear Space etc.There is no other company in India that can match L&T.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DN, another thing that I missed in all the mails you have received.

is that there is no reference to our annadathas!

One of the, if not the most  important culture is L&T's customer relationships.

That is what finally brings bread to our table.

Customer confidence in L&T's fairness.

I would like to narrate 2 incidents which indicate customer confidence in L&T.

When we started switchgear business in India,Nobody had heard of Laur 

Knudsen.Even L&T was a tiny company.

English Electric ,General Electric, Siemens & several other world's well known 

companies  were ruling the roost.

Late Mr. Officewalla,George & yours truly [ A master's degree holder  in Power 

Engineering!! A rare breed in those days, being a street salesman!! ] were street 

salesmen going in  BEST busses, trams with LK motor starter in a old fashioned 

[V shape] briefcase, visiting a chain of textile mills on Mahamdali road & beyond. 

If I have to write about those struggling days to convince the customers to buy 

our products against all the above heavy weights,it becomes a long story.

One aspect the 3-4 of us adopted was, since the customer doesn't know LK,  

we should try to to win over his confidence in us personally.

2 Examples. 

1. Century Mills.   [ UVR DM but a Salesman. For that matter was a salesman 

throughout his carrier.]

Century Mills in Kalyan was on an expansion spree. Switchgear for their first two 

stages were supplied by English Electric. George & I made it a point of pilgrimage 

& kept visiting & pestering purchase manager who as always was a Marvadi.

[ In those days he was the most powerful 'behind the screen' man.Things have 

changed since]

Finally we got a trial order fo 2 CI clad switchboards. Service we gave them 

during erection & commissioning was RR class.EE had taken them for 

granted.

The purchase manager started liking us personally and we received orders for 

the the next 3 expansions.

In the next tender, we could not offer anything to meet some special 

specs prepared by their foreign supplier of machinery. 

Nevertheless we quoted our nearest spec. Their Chief Engineer telephoned me to 

say that he was sorry,he cannot consider our offer, which did not surprise me.

What surprised me was, their purchase manager telephoned me requesting me 

to come to Kalyan. My response was 'while I am at your service any time you call 

me; but this time I know we do not meet your specs'.

"No, I dont want to discuss your offer;I want you to come here & sit with our CE 

and advice me on whom to place the order" was his response. [It was not easy as 

the requirements were special.] However George & I went there & spent a 

few hours and made our recommendation.

When I resigned fromL&T in '88 he wrote me a letter wishing me all the best,  

stating that he will lose a friend & his colleagues will miss me.

That my friends is one L&T's important culture.

2.Kanoria Chemicals.   [UVR Regional Manager]

Although their factory is in UP,their head office was/is in Kolkata.

Kolkata office booked this high value order & the execution etc. was to be done 

from Mumbai.Mr. G A Advani was GM in charge. Our job was only that of liaison. 

Since that was first order of that kind. I was playing the leading role of follow up 

& was in continuous contact with Mr.Shyamsunder Kanoria ,Founder & CMD.

Half way through the execution a dispute arose between EPC Dept in Mumbai & 

the customer.Due to some tough stand taken by Mumbai office It got out of 

control.Mr Advani suggested arbitration as allowed in the contract & asked me to 

request Mr. Kanoria to name his arbitrator.I went to his office with a heavy 

heart.To my utter surprise he said "Mr. Rao will you please act as my arbitrator? 

Smilingly, I said [ I got along very well with him ] no, Mr. Kanoria, Mr. Advani 

means this seriously."So do I" was the response.

In the event, we finally settled this without going for arbitration!

I used to receive New Year Greetings from S S. Kanoria  till about 3-4 years 

back! 43 years after I left Kolkata!!.

I want to stress here that it was not UVR's service. It was L&T's service.

Regards.

U V Rao

3294 12th A Main
HAL 2nd Stage
Bangalore
India 560008

Tel: 91 80 4097 3929
E-Mail: uvasurao@gmail.com