Mumbai:Larsen & Toubro plans to nurture the unique culture of Mindtree and will set up a council that will help in the exchange of best practices between the conglomerate and the company it has just acquired, L&T chief executive officer SN Subrahmanyan said.
The engineering conglomerate recently completed the acquisition of Mindtree, the first hostile takeover in Indias information technology industry, after being attacked by founders and employees who feared the heavyweight would crush the culture of the company. In March, when L&T first made its intentions clear, employees started a social media campaign, #MindtreeMatters, to express their displeasure about the plan.
“Good practices of one company can be adopted by the other. There will be a council formed at an appropriate time in the future, where good ideas can be exchanged,” said Subrahmanyan, who will also join the board of Mindtree once its shareholders approve the appointment in an annual general meeting on July 16.
L&T can help Mindtree with customer connect and a strong balance sheet.
Mindtree could assist its new parent with best practices to curb attrition. The tech companys 20,204 employees are called Mindtree Minds. The companys attrition rate is 14.2%, while that of L&Ts arm L&T Infotech is 17.5%, according to information on their respective websites.
L&Ts leadership has maintained that Mindtree will be run as a separate entity and operate at an arms length from L&T Infotech and that there would be no conflict of interest between them.
Subrahmanyan pointed out that running businesses independently under one umbrella is not new to the company. “L&T has its businesses organised as multiple verticals. These verticals help us bring in focus, clarity, transparency, building of skill-sets and objectivity into that business, and the vertical gets full freedom to run their business,” he told ETin an email.
Shares of Mindtree have fallen 12.5% this week after chairman Krishnakumar Natarajan, vice chairman NS Parthasarathy and CEO Rostow Ravanan — also cofounders — quit last week. The biggest challenge for L&T would be to appoint key officials who are a right fit and to retain the remaining senior executives.
“The value system, ethos, fair business practices and employee focus have made L&T a
