LTIMindtree's $10-billion Odyssey

LTIMindtree CEO and MD DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, in an exclusive interview with BW Businessworld's Rohit Chintapali, discusses the strategic merger between LTI and Mindtree, market challenges post-merger, leadership, succession, media & industry speculations and plans to reach a $10-billion revenue goal. Excerpts

The merger between LTI and Mindtree happened a year and a half ago under the visionary leadership of A.M. Naik and S. N. Subrahmanyan (SNS). What was your role during that transition period, which was quite expedited and had to be completed within six months?

The vision for the merger was to bring these two companies together only when both were performing well independently. This was to ensure that neither had to lean on the other. By April 2022, both companies were experiencing profitable growth and were at the top of their performance. Given their similar sizes and complementary capabilities, it was crucial to integrate quickly to capitalise on cross-selling and upselling opportunities.

We formed a steering committee, and my primary role was to ensure a smooth and rapid merger. We could not start exchanging data until 14 November 2022, due to regulatory restrictions, but we had done significant groundwork in advance. This preparation allowed us to complete the merger by April 2023, within the six-month timeframe. The main focus was aligning the organisational structure, capabilities, and go-to-market strategy to function as a single entity.

The post-merger period has been tough, to say the least. In fact, the pressures extended to everyone in the Indian IT sector. How do you view the past one and a half years since becoming a single company?