A marque for its global, distinguished, and integrated range of skills and expertise and is a trusted name for delivering engineering excellence in the field of infrastructure development is Consulting Engineers Group Ltd. (CEG). Mr. Vishwas Jain is the Managing Director at the company. CEG is an international infrastructure consulting organization providing services for Highways, Bridges, Rail, Metro, Tunnels, Buildings, Water Resources, Urban Development & Geotechnical Investigation. To get more insights about CEG’s prominent services and uniqueness, we bring you an exclusive interview with Mr. Vishwas.
1) Kindly brief us about your consultancy.
Consulting Engineers Group Ltd. is an ISO 9001:2008 accredited leading international consulting organization providing comprehensive professional consultancy services for all the facets of planning, preliminary and detailed engineering design and construction supervision of Infrastructure development and management projects. Founded in 1984, CEG has grown exponentially and transformed into a multidisciplinary organization in the ambit of infrastructure and now employees over 1100 professionals working from various offices globally. CEG today has a wide ranging portfolio and has successfully implemented several iconic infrastructure projects. CEG have a current turnover of INR 1.27 billion and international experience of working in Bangladesh, Australia, Ghana, Liberia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tanzania.
2) Brief us about the Founder/CEO and his/her contribution towards the upliftment of the consultancy. What was the source of inspiration for your consultancy to be a pioneer in the Engineering Consultants segment?
The genesis of thought prevailed since completing engineering in year 1983 to be an entrepreneur and do something in the core civil engineering field. Having strong certainty in mind, he could never think of getting a job and thus never tried. As a humble beginning, he started with environmental consultancy and geotechnical investigation and now it is one of largest Indian Infrastructure company associated with many iconic projects in India and abroad and responsible for creating employment opportunities for more than 1100 engineers and professionals.
3) What are the distinct products and services provided by your consultancy, setting you apart from your competitors?
We are known to deliver best technical solutions to our clients at par with International quality. We pride ourselves for the wide range of services that we can offer under a single roof. CEG is the only Indian owned organization in the country to have the capabilities for infrastructure consultancy services along with complete facility of laboratory and field investigations for varied development projects. Our sister concern – CEG Test House And Research Centre Pvt Ltd. Is a well-known in the engineering and FMCG industry, where in it is fully equipped to provide testing services ranging from construction material, non-destructive, geotechnical investigations, water testing, environmental monitoring, food and pharma testing with due approvals from the concerned authorities like NABL, MoEF, FSSAI etc. Also, we have always re-invested our profits in the interest of company which has led to a situation where we proudly remained a debt free company from the past 30 years.
4) What are the key attributes that helped your consultancy to overcome the challenges?
The essence of any company’s consistent growth is based on how they chose to interact with their clients. Accordingly we have always made our efforts to maintain the quality of our deliverables to the best possible manner and provide the consultancy keeping our ethical policies on top priority. A lot of this has also been possible due to the support of well-experienced senior professionals with similar minds who have always encouraged such policies and also communicated these to their colleagues to inculcate the same values.
5) What is the current scenario of Engineering Consultation industry, from your point of view?
In a developing country, the key to growing at a higher rate lies in the ability to create world-class infrastructure. Infrastructure development has contributed lot in GDP growth of India. Now Indian consulting companies and professionals have gained rich experience using latest technology. Indian consulting companies are now actively participating in third world countries including African sub-continent, South east Asia and other part of world. Indian consulting companies have observed more fast growth in other countries during last one decade. Our biggest strength will remain experienced professional manpower ready to take challenge in any part of world.   I feel, consulting industry will keep excelling at international level in future. Unlike few year ago when we were looking to bring international consulting companies to India for better technology, now we are in the position to provide our know how to others which is at par with International standard.
Present perks and salaries offered within India is continuously attracting many Indian professionals to come back to home country, who have spent considerable time abroad working in International culture and got varied exposure with technology.
I strongly feel, Indian consulting companies will keep growing their business within India and at international level.
6) With the massive advancements in the Engineering industry, what are the opportunities and challenges evolving with it?
Infrastructure industry in India is with full of opportunities. We still to go in long way to strengthen our infrastructure especially in Road, Rail, Metro, Airport, Power, Water resources etc. Infrastructure is an area where there lies huge opportunity, which can be tapped by evolving an integrated development programs within different sectors and regions. There is a need for some radical decision-making and good project development. We still face several challenges such as the delayed project completion, cost overrun, land acquisition problems, lack of coordination between multiple stakeholders in the infrastructure sector, lengthy document processing time, lack of Clarity and procedure in resolving Environmental issues etc. We need strong political stable polices for smooth and faster development. Today’s infrastructure is under intense pressure to operate at the speed of development – that means being infused with the agility to adapt as quickly as customers and the market demand. We also need to run continuous training and capacity building programs for all stake holders involved in developmental activities.  No developing country can afford to waste a small money by creating inferior quality of infrastructure where we need more attention so that each and every rupee spent contributes to nation development. By having involvement of good consulting companies, responsibility of quality issues can be addressed.
7) What are the benefits gained by your clients while doing business with you?Â
Our working principle has been very simple, to produce such quality work that one client who becomes associated with CEG would never leave us. Our clients are located in nearly every part of the country. But whoever and wherever they are, we spend time getting to really understand our clients, listening to them closely. We differentiate ourselves by focusing on the value they’re looking for and having a strong, global network with deep roots and local knowledge, delivered to wherever it’s needed. In every case, our purpose is twofold: to help our clients find solutions to their important problems and to work with them, and our other stakeholders, to build trust in society.
8) What is the role of your employees behind your consultancy’s success? How do you keep them motivated?
As our vision and mission, we feel our employees are our assets and we are firm believers of advancing our employees further in their career which is one of the main reasons of success of CEG. We have implemented very strong Human Resource polices in the interest of welfare of our employees. Their work and contribution are being recognised and incentivised. We give entire credit of success of CEG to our people who created growth path for us. We are proud to create a safe place to work for professionals coming from across the country without having any fear for women employees.
9) What would be your advice for the budding startups and entrepreneurs in the industry?
First of all, find your passion and work hard with clarity in thoughts endlessly. Believe in yourself and also let others grow with you. Every person you meet is game changer and learn from them. Difficult is not impossible, just keep going. Delete word struggle and take everything easy.
10) Brief us about your consultancy’s future perspectives.
We aim to remain committed to our profession and success shall follow. We don’t aim for everything; however, we do aim to be the best in the industry in whatever we do. Transport sector is our hard-core strength and we really enjoy the fact of being the preferred choice for Roads, Rail, Airport, Metro projects among our esteemed clients. Our near future plan is strengthening ourselves in Metro, Rail and Airport sectors. We also look forward to develop our capabilities in water sector.
