CAPTECH TECHNOLOGIES’ EFORCE PLATFORM WILL REVOLUTIONIZE THE INDUSTRY IN MORE THAN ONE WAYS

Describe about your business entity in the field of infrastructure; and let us know about your expert opinion on the Indian infra market’s current situation

Captech technologies is a part of the construction major Capacite InfraProjects limited. At Captech Technologies, we are investing in finding new ways in which technology can transform the existing construction practices in India and also create new job opportunities. Technology has transformed the world and it has changed the way the construction industry operates today. Advancement of technology has enabled the industry to further personalize the customer experience at every touchpoint.

The pandemic has caused havoc disruption in the supply-chain, however the industry is slowly but steadily recovering from the current situation faced due to COVID-19 and countrywide lockdown. I am sure that the speed of the recovery will increase greatly in the next 2-3 months. The time is right to invest in tech-solutions especially in growing major economies like India where internet data and access to smartphones to the country’s common population is increasing so rapidly!

Going forward, if our construction industry invests the next couple of months into technology and a more robust, resilient modern supply chain ecosystem then the growth projections in the long-term could be phenomenal.

Tell us about the growth challenges which the overall infrastructure industry is facing progressively for the year 2020; and what is your positive strategy to combat the crisis of labour to finance for your business plans?

In India, even today the issues related to labor shortages in the construction industry remain significant and prevalent. Various construction companies find it tough to get skilled workforce and this is where technology can help bridge the gap between general contractors/project developers, migrant labor, contractors & specialized vendors via construction tech platforms, and this trend will only accelerate in the coming days.

After the lockdown is lifted and the situation normalizes, garnering enough labour, and specialized contractors for various infrastructure projects will be mammoth task, in this situation one have to be more transparent and a robust relationship (preferably digitally) between the various stakeholders will help one take decisions quickly and find the necessary resources to cover unexpected delays in a project life cycle.

With regards to CapTech Technologies, we would be focusing and investing on robust technology relevant to the sector and app based digital platforms will continue to be our primary focus. We will aiming in rebuilding a firmer, resilient, and very strong supply chain systems – so that all the stakeholders can benefit from the massive increase in operational efficiency. This will benefit all the stakeholders, from developers to general contractors to subcontractors. This will additionally help individual projects have a better profit margin and a lot more gain in productivity, in the same time enjoying faster completion of the projects.

How technology can revolutionize the construction industry? How technology can become a boon for India’s skilled and unskilled migrant labour/ workforce?

Construction companies, across the globe, are utilizing technology to improve their customer experience. The latest advancements have benefited the industry in innumerable ways, it helped in increasing operational efficiency, reduce overhead costs, and projects are handled more efficiently. The silver lining of this pandemic for our industry is that, it has given us enough time think and motivate ourselves. Also, rebuild and modernize our supply chain management so that we can grow faster than we ever thought was possible. With Digital platforms linking all the stakeholders, better payment transparencies and faster completion of projects the skilled and unskilled workforce of India will have multiple job opportunities, opportunities that could offer much better pays and with a lot more consistency!

Today, the role of technology has changed from being a source of marginal efficiency gains to becoming the foundation for transformation. Also, increasingly companies are recognizing the need to innovate both to stay ahead of competitors and to prevent the disruption of established business models by ambitious and responsive natives.

Additionally, the latest tech devices and software programs allow management teams to better keep track of projects, developers, and workers/laborers remotely. Rapid adaptation of technology in the industry has also led to safer and more efficient job sites, reduced costs, faster job completion, and increased profits. In the last couple of years, many new and emerging technologies have made a major impact on the construction industry. Finally, technology is making construction safer and more efficient and will further revolutionize the industry.

How Artificial Intelligence (AI) can bridge the gap between bring the construction companies and real estate players?

Technologies like Augmented and virtual reality, unmanned aerial vehicles, and the use of Artificial intelligence (AI) in construction and app-based platforms are gaining huge momentum today. Artificial intelligence can help find the “right fit subcontractors” to the general contractors and developers to make sure that their projects get completed a lot more quicker and with a lot less friction while offering great opportunities for the various sub-contractors to get back to back business.

AI can also play a major role in designing more efficient construction plans and identifying the fastest methodology that contractors can adopt to reduce construction cost, time and increase profitability while creating tremendous value to all the end users.

Why tech-led solutions are becoming necessary for the construction industry?

The current construction market scenario suggests, there is little doubt that technology holds transformative power and the industry is counting on technology to help solve its labor shortage, improve worker safety, strengthen risk management, and boost efficiency and productivity. Technology has evolved rapidly in the last few years, bringing massive changes to the construction industry. There was a time when technology was only looked at as a tool to increase operations and profit margins marginally, but now technology is playing and will continue to play a major role in transforming the entire industry and help it flourish in a sustainable way. If you see what the idea of Henry Ford’s “Assembly line” did to manufacturing, the same amount of gains could be seen in construction sector as well.

Idea behind launching this platform? How is it going to help the laborers, contractors, real estate players?

What inspired me to launch this platform is my determination and passion to transform the construction industry, with the help of technology and provide one stop solution platform to the laborers, contractors and real estate players.

Post completion of my course in Computer engineering from the US, I returned back to India to dedicate my time and learning on the construction sites of Capacite Infra. During this time I witnessed the massive engineering challenges faced by the sector. After spending couple of years in understanding how the construction ecosystem in India worked, I realized that there is a need to bridge the gap between the Developers/General contractors with the various subcontractors and specialized vendors that will boost our entire supply chain. This is when I thought of launching the app based platform.

How is “eFORCE” going to revolutionize the industry? How does this technology work?

Captech technologies’ eFORCE platform will revolutionize the industry in more than one ways, it is a multi-lingual end to end mobile platform through which general contractors and developers are matched to the “right-fit” list of subcontractors and labour contractors that can finish their projects quickly. The subcontractors and labour contractors will be matched according to their expertise, experience and bandwidth- this will help the general contractor and developers solve their workmen issue fast while virtually digitizing their entire “Labour resource department”.

The subcontractors on the other hand will get real-time business leads all through a multi-lingual simple mobile app. eFORCE platform goes one step further and helps increase payment transparency between the Developer/ General Contractor and the subcontractor so that with this additional boost of trust and transparency- sourcing and procuring the necessary resources to complete projects even before time can be quickly found and applied.

What is it that you forecast for the period of 2020-2022? Do you think that the Indian market can plan out an exit from the challenges and draw some intensive successful movements for doing business activities?

Absolutely, I strongly believe that the industry will recover quickly. I am also very optimistic about the rise of the industry and sincerely hope together as a nation we will come out from this crisis and emerge stronger.