As part of our ongoing quest to get you meaningful stories and insights from the startup ecosystem, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur – Asutosh Katyal, for an exclusive interview with BrilliantRead Media. He is an Entrepreneur, Leader and Founder & CEO of Captech technologies. Let’s learn more about his inspiring journey as an entrepreneur so far, his way forward and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Asutosh:
Please share with our audience about your journey as an entrepreneur and what led you to develop such an innovative platform?
I have always been passionate about solving problems and starting a business. I did my engineering and specialisation in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, US.
After completing my education I returned from the US to join Capacit’e Infra projects limited to get “on ground” experience of how high rises and super high rise buildings (80 floors and above) are coordinated and built from scratch. You see, my entire family has been in the construction industry for over 2 decades now, and from a very young age, I’ve indirectly and directly seen the challenges that go into completing an Infra project, both from a financial standpoint as well as from an operational standpoint.”
To understand the ecosystem at a deeper level I was posted on many construction sites and even coordinated two major projects in the Mumbai MMR region as a project coordinator. The “on-ground” experience was hectic and long as most construction sites work Monday through Sunday (7 days a week) from 8 am to 8 pm. After working on-ground for a good 2.5 years it became very clear to me that there was a dire need for technology in our Indian construction industry. A piece of technology that could really revolutionise how the industry has been working for so many decades!
There is a need for platforms and technology that can transform the construction industry in a similar way as Henry Ford’s Assembly line revolutionized manufacturing forever. That’s how Captech Technologies and its eFORCE platform was envisioned, executed and bought to fruition. As the fastest-growing major economy in the world, India needs a lot more organised workforce to meet its needs and that was also something I was extremely passionate about while laying the foundation for Captech Technologies.”
Please describe your business entity in the field of infrastructure, and let us know about your expert opinion on the Indian infra market’s current situation?
Our entity Captech technologies is a part of the group company and construction major Capacite InfraProjects limited. At Captech Technologies, we are invested in finding new ways in which technology can augment and transform existing construction practices in India while creating new job opportunities for India’s existing workmen.
The construction industry is recovering back quickly from the situation and disruption in the supply chain that the Pandemic caused. This recovery seems to be gradual now, but I am sure that the speed of the recovery will increase greatly in the next 2-3 months to come.
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?
Well, garnering enough labour, and specialized contractors for various infrastructure projects owing to the repercussions of the pandemic was the highlight of all the problems. It definitely highlighted the pain point of having a more transparent, robust relationship (preferably digitally) between the various stakeholders to be able to make decisions quickly and find the necessary resources to cover unexpected delays in a project life cycle.
My business plan would be in Building and investing in technology and digital platforms, and rebuilding a firmer, resilient, and very robust supply chain systems – so that all the stakeholders can benefit from the massive increase in operational efficiency. This way, all stakeholders from developers to general contractors to subcontractors down to the individual projects can enjoy a much better profit margin and a lot more gain in productivity, while 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?
In the last 20 years or so if you see global trends, sectors like aerospace and manufacturing have seen tremendous gains in productivity, owing to revolutionizing technology. However, if you see the trend of technology adoption for construction, comparatively it has a lot more to do to catch up with the other major sectors. The silver lining of this pandemic for our industry is that it has given us enough time and motivation to rethink, 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!
How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) bridge the gap between bringing the construction companies and real estate players?
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 quickly 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?
There was a time when technology was only looked at as a tool to increase operations and profit margins marginally, but now I think it will 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.
What is the idea behind launching this platform? How is it going to help the labourers, contractors, real estate players?
After doing my Computer engineering from the US, I chose to work on the construction sites of Capacite Infra to see how massive engineering challenges such as high-rises and super-high rises are envisioned, planned and executed. After spending a few years of truly understanding how the construction ecosystem in India worked, I realized that by the simple process of connecting Developers/General contractors with the various subcontractors and specialized vendors, in a way that offered relatively better payment transparency the turn around time of completing a project could decrease massively- which in turn would have a “Compounding positive effect” on various other factors that dictate our entire supply chain! All this, in the end, can create a much happier, healthier and profitable industry for all while creating a tremendous amount of consistent job opportunities for the workforce.
How is “eFORCE” going to revolutionise the industry? How does this technology work?
Captech technologies’ eFORCE platform 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, get real-time business leads all through a multi-lingual simple mobile app. Our 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 think the industry will recover fairly quickly, and by early next year, if not sooner be ready for a V-shaped recovery. Investing this time in technology could even help the industry boost long-term productivity to an extent that the entire industry ensures much healthier bottom lines and more job creation for many years to come.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
