With more and more states enabling smart governance for ease of doing business, the future for online building plan approval systems looks brighter in India. We already have states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, UP, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Jharkhand, where the online building plan approval system has provided great relief to the housing industry and has helped these states in achieving higher EODB rankings. Now, other states are also joining them.
As more and more states are enabling and implementing an online building plan approval system, SoftTech Engineers, which has been revolutionising the technology in the AEC domain for the last 24+ years, is gearing up for a brighter and better outlook.
SoftTech’s solution, implemented at MCGM, has contributed to the improvement in India’s EODB global ranking. The company has been re-inventing the ways in which businesses are conducted in the AEC domain. The company claims to have already served more than 600+ customers across government bodies & smart cities; and they say that the number is growing consistently.
Global Efforts
Having established a strong foothold in the domestic market, the company is looking to expand internationally. Considering the potential of SoftTech technology globally, RIB has invested in SoftTech. RIB is a German-headquartered company holding the world’s leading position in construction industry software, and a provider of MTWO cloud enterprise platform technology to the building and infrastructure industry. SoftTech has started participation in international bids for construction permits. Recently, SoftTech and RIB have jointly participated in two international bids for BIM-based construction permit software applications to government clients based in Singapore and Australia. One bid is pending for participation in the United States.
They have established a strong relationship with a UK-based global leader in energy management systems for buildings and are looking at enhancement of their permit solutions to provide energy ratings and audits of the buildings. They plan to implement green building codes as an extension of their AutoDCR product.
They have started penetration of their product OPTICON in Asia pacific countries. The Malaysian market has shown strong demand for OPTICON after COVID-19, as many construction companies now want automation as a basic need to manage their business rather than an option. SoftTech has targeted a high potential market in this region.
The company is spreading its wings with a partnership with ESRI to offer its solutions jointly with their GIS City ELA solution as a box solution to cities.
Outlook 2020-21
The outlook for 2020-21 is looking brighter with continued efforts by the government and industry alike to overcome the COVID situation. With the recent launch of RuleBuddy PlanAssist, the company is upbeat about its revenue. Rulebuddy eliminates CAD software dependency for rule checking. After this launch, the company looks to strengthen its mark in the private sector. Also, BIMDCR is shaping excellently and SoftTech is confident to establish this product in the Asia Pacific, UK, and the US in the year 2020-21. They say that their business and strategic partnership with East India Udhyog Limited will help strengthen their government business to multiple folds, leveraging their reach to the entire country network and financial strength. They claim to be able to leverage their association in the financial year 20-21 to multiply their growth.
Commenting on this, Vijay Gupta, founder and CEO, SoftTech Engineers, said, “We’re constantly working to maintain our leadership position in building plan approval systems in India. Also, we are looking forward to serving the private sector with our new product RuleBuddy PlanAssist. I am confident that this will help us with significant penetration in the private sector.”
He added: “Our partnership with RIB will contribute to our sales revenue from the international markets and help us achieve higher profits and valuations. On the whole, we shall continue to drive the company’s revenue and profitability, increasing return on capital employed as well as resource utilisation and improving cash flows for our business, backed with our strong ethical and corporate governance practices and continuous innovations.”
