L&T leadership delivers a crucial message at the annual F&A Meet and CFO Awards 2022
The L&T Group’s Annual Finance & Accounts (F&A) Meet 2022 and the 21st CFO Awards were hosted on 8 December at AMN Tower – the conglomerate’s corporate office at Powai in Mumbai.
The day-long event, presided over by L&T Whole-time Director & Chief Financial Officer Mr R Shankar Raman, was attended by the Group’s F&A professionals, while several others joined in virtually. The event was graced by several key leaders of the conglomerate, including the CEO & MD Mr SN Subrahmanyan (SNS), Whole-time Director Mr Subramanian Sarma and Advisor Mr JD Patil.
The Meet took off with Mr Sajjid Z Chinoy (MD & Chief India Economist - J P Morgan India) and Mr Nilesh Shah (MD - Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company Ltd) sharing their views on the event theme – “Growth Amidst Turbulence”.
Both of them predicted robust GDP growth for India over a five-year horizon, provided the economy copes well with the impending volatility over the next year. While complimenting L&T for its commendable performance over the decades, Mr Shah emphasised on the need for L&T to lead “policy advocacy in the infrastructure sector”, concluding with the comment that “what is good for L&T is good for India”.
In his opening remarks, Mr Shankar Raman underscored the ‘subtle but strong’ role of F&A in every business function. Urging everyone to challenge the status quo and undertake a thorough review of the cost structure across businesses, he called for waging a war on costs, especially the fixed components, so as to remain competitive.
Apart from maintaining an asset-light and capital-light model, Mr Shankar Raman suggested the use of cost accounting to track expenditure and to assess the true contribution of capital. He said that the conglomerate should ideally aim only for those ‘impact projects’ which are critical in terms of realising the Group’s revenue and profit targets as outlined in the Lakshya 2026 plan, but only after thorough stress-testing of all assumptions.
He emphasised the need for F&A functions to intensely focus on productivity, aggressively automate processes, and use shared services extensively to put all repetitive processes in a machine-learned format. This would give the business’ F&A teams an opportunity to upskill themselves into an analytical strategic role.
Delivering the valedictory address, the CEO & MD Mr SN Subrahmanyan echoed the CFO’s sentiments, saying: “All our business is contractual, we cannot escape L-1”. Reiterating the need to cut cost, he called for resource rationalisation by looking at a shared services model. He underscored that L&T needs to be thorough about the terms and conditions before taking up a contract.
Mr Subrahmanyan suggested that an F&A professional be assigned to every project site. Along with the Project Manager, the F&A professional would correctly assess cost, avoiding any last-minute surprises. Additionally, s/he should train youngsters on such assessment skills, he added.
The day concluded with the CFO Awards, an annual ceremony felicitating outstanding performers in the F&A fraternity across L&T Group. Growing in stature with each passing year, it provides the employees a great platform to showcase their talent and achievements. The Awards comprise two segments – Contested and Adjudged.
CONTESTED CATEGORY
- Young Achiever Award
- Outstanding Teamwork Award
- General Proficiency Award
This year was exceptional as 129 nominations were received for the contested category, the highest since the Awards were instituted. The nominations were received from across 50 centres comprising of sites/units/offices pan- India, as well as from international locations such as UAE, Saudi Arabia, Mauritius, Zanzibar, Muscat, Malaysia, Nepal, etc.
The nominations were meticulously screened by Mr WP Parthasarathy and Mr Satish Shenoy, and graded ranging from A+ (highest) to C (lowest). Top three nominations each from the Young Achiever and General Proficiency categories and the top five teams from the Outstanding Teamwork category were given an opportunity to make a presentation at the Award function and were judged by the delegates present, through e-polling. The winners were announced immediately based on the e-results.
The rise in the number of high-quality nominations over the previous years was an evidence of the excellent talent pool within the organisation and each of their contributions add value. Mr Subrahmanyan, Mr Sarma and Mr Patil handed over the awards.
ADJUDGED CATEGORY
- Excellence in Financial Reporting - Projects, Manufacturing & Others Award – L&T Energy -Hydrocarbon
- Excellence in Financial Reporting - Services & Concessions Award – L&T Financial Services
- Excellence in Working Capital & Resource Management Award – Heavy Civil Infrastructure
- Special Award for Excellence in BG
Reduction – Buildings & Factories
The CFO Special Award for Functional Leadership was conferred on Mr WP Parthasarathy (Head - Corporate Audit Services) for upholding the value system of L&T.
The event concluded with the customary vote of thanks and a display of in-house talent in which the delegates participated wholeheartedly and enjoyed immensely.
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THE CFO AWARDS SCOREBOARD
General Proficiency
45 Nominations received
Shortlisted:
• Nishant Kapadia - HE
• Karthik Rajan - LTIMindtree
• Sachin Raut - Corporate Audit Services
Winner: Sachin Raut, DGM - Corporate Audit Services
Young Achiever
27 Nominations received
Shortlisted:
• P R Janani - HC
• Vaishali Rizwani - PT&D
• Sujeet Santosh Dalvi - Corporate Accounts
Winner: P R Janani, HC - Indirect Taxation
Teamwork
57 Nominations received
Shortlisted:
• LTMRHL & Corporate Finance Team
• LTI International Tax Team
• Divisional Corporate – Treasury Team
• Corporate Accounts, Powai
• L&T Finance Holdings Team
Winner: Divisional Corporate - Treasury Team
Runner-up: LTMRHL & Corporate Finance Team
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