Translation of the interview that appeared in the February 2022 issue of Forbes Magazine (Hungarian edition)
Proven expertise, new opportunities
There is not a single builder who has not faced serious problems affecting the construction industry in recent months. However, there is now help: 3E International Kft., which has grown into a group of companies, can now protect the interests of builders in other ways than traditional project management activities and create new values. Customers can expect new technologies, innovative solutions, extensive consultancy – and, of course, the well-known expertise, commitment, and transparency.
Skyrocketing prices and lack of building materials due to supply constraints and labour shortage. The problems affecting the construction industry need not be explained to anyone. The difficult situation adds even more value to services that help to complete construction projects with a predictable schedule, at controlled costs and in the quality specified in advance.
3E has been a partner to property developers and major investors in the construction sector since 2005, and the value of the company’s work is clearly demonstrated by the fact that even more clients than before have used its services in the past year. So far, the company has mainly helped to implement and manage investments as an engineering service provider, and ensured that the technical content, budget, and lead time of the projects are in line with the needs of its clients. But today 3E is also responding to new challenges with new services.
THEY CAN PROVIDE MORE “Last year was a very successful year for us,” says Balázs Korintus, Managing Director. – We started to think about how we could further develop the scope of our services and further strengthen our market position. We have set ourselves the goal for the near future to provide services that go beyond the services offered by others in the engineering services market, such as project management, technical inspection or cost analysis, and to offer more and different services compared to the traditional market players.” These are typically services for which investors have had to hire and coordinate several different companies, they have not received a complex service from a single provider, and services that are emerging as new needs now, due to technological and knowledge developments.
The changes are also reflected in the organisational structure: 3E now operates as a group of four companies. 3E International Kft. will continue to provide the traditional project management services that have established the company’s success, naturally, with the same high quality as up to now. ‘In this case, the typical situation is that the project has a general contractor, and our task is to manage, supervise and monitor him’, says Balázs Korintus.
The general contractor model has been almost the dominant model for large construction projects for a long time, but this is changing.‘Prices have increased dramatically, and an even bigger problem is that supply chains are uncertain, and capacities are restricted’, explains Gergely Laczkovich, the other managing director of 3E. ‘In this situation, it is often better for the investor to break down the construction into smaller packages. This allows not only tighter cost control, but also reduces the investor’s exposure to the general contractor’, he adds.
LOWER COSTS, LOWER RISKS In the model offered by 3E Construction Management Kft., 3E does not act as a general contractor, but offers the added value as an external party to the investor.
Values that can be expected from a general contractor: all the works are handled by a single person, to ensure one uniform front and face for the implementation. However, since the contract is directly concluded between the investor and the contractors who actually carry out the work, should a problem arise, it is possible to find another solution without having to terminate the contract with a general contractor, with all the practical, legal, and even financial difficulties that this might entail. ‘We are named in these contracts, and we carry out the professional, legal coordination. This model has its risks as well, evidently, but even the financing banks are beginning to realise that these are smaller than in the case of a general contractor, where investors have very few tools to manage the problems occurring there, says Gergely Laczkovich. Naturally, it is also important to note that significant savings can be reached in this way, which, according to our experience, might account for as high as roughly 4-5 percent of the total construction cost.’
MUTUAL INTERESTS At 3E Kft, we also focus on investors and property owners who may not have the capacity or the specific expertise to complete a development in a particular period or in general. Whether you’re a real estate developer with ongoing projects that are already using up your available capacity, or a company with a different profile that doesn’t know how to get started with such a project, 3E Development Kft. can help. ‘Another new service we offer is our ability to also act as a development consultant and professional supporter, regardless on the phase of the investment, whether it is at the pre-development or the implementation stage. We already had the full scope of engineering and development expertise in-house, and now we have complemented this with a partner who has an in-depth knowledge of the legal, procedural, construction law- related, licensing and administrative aspects of major investments, not only from a theoretical but also from a practical perspective’, says Balázs Korintus. In such a case, the company’s organisation responsible for the project performs its tasks ‘in-house’ as a coherent, experienced team, practically integrated into the organisation of the investing company, and a model for remuneration has been developed so that they themselves have an interest in the success of the project, sharing the success and jointly assuming the risks with the client.
TRANSPARENCY IN REAL TIME But whatever form the implementation process takes, there is one solution that would be a mistake not to use, according to the experts at 3E. This is BIM, which stands for Building Information Management. BIM is based on the three-dimensional model of the designed building, which is subsequently updated throughout the construction process. And what is it good for? The question is rather what it is not good for, if used properly. ‘BIM has been a keyword for a long time, but in the implementation of investments and during operation, only very few companies are able to really leverage it’, says Balázs Korintus. – For example, if there is a good 3D model, conflicts between the architectural, technical, and electrical plans can come up already in the design phase. But this is just the start. The plan is there, the way the building should look like, and then you can go out from time to time and scan the house, and the results can be applied to the model in a moment’. In addition to delivering an almost real-time virtual model for the investor to track the progress of the construction, this also helps to ensure that if there is a mistake or any difference between reality and the plan, it is immediately detected, not just when, say, these are more expensive and time-consuming to fix. But this is still only a small fraction of the possibilities offered by the services of 3E BIM Lens Kft. 
The company helps the investors and clients to prepare a document called BEP (BIM Execution Plan), which summarizes the design, construction, operational aspects of the project as well as the reporting on these processes. By using and complying with what is specified in this document, you can produce very high-quality plans, which will allow for more accurate budgets, faster construction, and more efficient operation. ‘You can assign costs to the 3D model – and from this point on we’re talking about 4D – so you can see not only what’s taking place, but also what funding schedule it requires. If we add a fifth dimension, the temporal dimension, we are already in the 5D model, and we assign to the plan what happens in the first, second, or any other week of the construction. This makes it easier to align, plan and coordinate the arrival, presence and operation of all participants’, says Balázs Korintus. 3E is committed to leveraging the potential of BIM in its own projects as much as possible, but through 3E BIM Lens it is available to all investors at any stage of the construction process. Needless to say, BIM alone has no magic power, but it sets a similar direction for all the services of the 3E Group, as emphasized by Gergely Laczkovich as well: ‘Our aim is always to give our clients a better insight into every part of the project that we supervise, control or manage, thereby giving them the opportunity to control and the security to intervene effectively and with little time loss in case of problems.’