Larsen and Toubro: the fast strategy game

Abstract

Larsen and Toubro (L and T), a major construction and infrastructure company, cherishes a culture of investing in the skill development of its employees to enrich them and enable them to take up leadership roles. L and T s MDC program is a tie up with IIM Bangalore where they conduct workshops for the senior managers of L and T. The sessions are conducted by distinguished IIMB professors, through case analysis method. One of the requirements which had been raised over the past few workshops has been the need to use cases which is more relevant to L and T, instead of the HBS cases or cases based on other Indian companies. Our project is the first step in that direction. We have to develop teaching cases based on L and T s own experience in various projects executed earlier. The project chosen for this first series of cases will be the 5500 crore worth project to develop and upgrade the Mumbai International Airport. Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) Project is unique in its challenges and complexity. Mumbai Airport is a major Airport in India. Further the project is a brown field project, i.e., the upgrade has to be done to an Airport that is operational and handles more than half of the air traffic in south Asia. This is in contrast to a green field airport project such as the Bangalore International Airport project that was to build a completely new airport .The location of Airport is within city limits, that adds to the space constraints and as well as difficulties in mobilizing resources. Further, the scope of the project at the beginning was not well defined. We have identified four main areas for the analysis :a) Significance of fast strategy in gaining competitive advantage in situations of ambiguity. b) Relationship with subcontractors. c) Risk management. d) Project management In this project, we plan to work on the first area i.e significance of fast strategy in gaining competitive advantage in situations of ambiguity. Through interviews of the senior leaders of L and T ECC division, we plan to capture how significant is fast strategy in helping L and T gain competitive advantage in this historic Mumbai international Airport project. The decision making process and the organization agility - as aspects of fast strategy - which helped L and T to succeed in the airport vertical will be studied. The study includes field visit to MIAL site office and interviewing the L and T senior managers responsible in various aspects of the projects. We also plan to study their documentation and understand their processes. In the end we plan to develop a framework that can be used to connect the dots together.