Strategic change for growth: A case of construction company in India

The construction industry in India, despite being second largest industry, next only to agriculture, in terms of its contributions to infrastructure and employment has received inadequate attention from the policy makers. As the economy grew fast, many companies found themselves unable to meet the market demand. The expected outlay for infrastructure development in the next 5 years (2012-2017) is projected to be over one trillion US dollar. The current production and handling capacities of con-struction companies are too meager to handle such huge demand. Due to gaps in internal capabilities as well as growth strategizing vision, most companies in India are unable to convert these huge opportunities that the infrastructure expansion projects offer. The purpose of this case is to learn about enablers contributing to strategic changes for growth from Case Company, the leading construction company in India. It is much ahead of the rest and the only one among the engineering news-record top 50 companies. The paper adopts a case based approach in which an attempt is made to identify key enablers contributing to strategic changes for growth from interviews of the top management, secondary published literature and analysis based on Strategy Diamond Framework. These enablers provide the flexibility to the Case Company to ring in changes, so as to differentiate with respect to domestic companies and aspire to be a major global player by ascending the ladder of competitiveness. The study is an attempt to record what makes the Case Company a pioneer in terms of change in business arenas and capabilities in the wake of the infrastructure boom in the domestic market. It would attempt to discover the traits necessary in the path of strategic change for growth. This paper offers fresh growth perspectives to strategy literature related to construction companies. © Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management 2013.