Toubro felt that such an India would "offer great opportunities to anyone with modern technological and management skills.
[1] Larsen & Toubro saw opportunities in India at a time, when few Europeans had realised the country's potential for industrial growth.
The imports stopped after the German invasion of Denmark, forcing L&T to start manufacturing dairy equipment indigenously, a move that was successful.
The internment of German engineers who were supposed to build a soda ash plant for the Tatas provided L&T another new opportunity.
In 1945, L&T signed an agreement with the Caterpillar Tractor Company of the United States for marketing earthmoving equipment.
A hard taskmaster with a schoolmasterly attitude to training he may have been, but the young he mentored still remember the lessons he taught: that no effort was too great to ensure customer satisfaction, that there must be attention to detail in the quest for perfection, and that there must be pride in whatever was being done.Soren K. Toubro served as the director of L&T from 1946 to 1981, and retired from active management in 1962–63.