Organising convenience in construction

BRAND CONNECT

Published: May 6, 2019 07:50:01 AM IST

Updated: May 6, 2019 06:29:34 PM IST

B Rajesh Nair
Promoter Chairman & MD,
Convenient Construction Consultancy Pvt Ltd
Years of experience: 33 years

B Rajesh Nair completed his B. E. (Civil) from M.A.N.I.T., Bhopal. He also has a PGDM in Personal Management from IGNOU. With sheer hardwork and talent, Mr Rajesh Nair has grown through a series of roles in the real estate market, moving from an engineer-level position to the leadership role of CEO and Executive Director with central India’s leading Retail Real Estate Company. He is a member of AIMA, IAPPA, Indian Institute of Bridge Engineers and the Indian Institution of Valuer. He has been at the helm of a corporate organisation as a CEO until 2010 after which he took the plunge into entrepreneurship by offering consultancy services in Design of MEP, Structure and Project Management.

Nair started Convenient Construction Consultancy Pvt Ltd eight years ago. The company provides project management services, structural design services and strategy planning, among others. These services are provided across sectors where clients are offered one-stop solutions. With his expertise and experience of leading a reputed company, Nair has a wholesome understanding of the clients’ needs and creates cost-effective business plans to achieve it within the stipulated time. He also identifies possible stumbling blocks in advance to tackle them and complete projects in record time.

Life Lessons
Nair draws inspiration from Narayan Murthy for his simplicity and hard work that created an iconic organisation such as Infosys. He says, “In the initial years of the organisation, we decided to allot sweat equity to our employees. This decision was taken as I firmly believe that organisations will only grow when the leaders foresee growth in a way that shares profit with the team. In an organisation, the team is an important pillar of any organisation. Organisations should foster a healthy culture and keep their employees happy as there may be many directors or leaders, but unless the team is not kept satisfied and is not taken care of, the organisation won’t grow."

Nair believes that team members who have been associated with the company for long terms should be rewarded with shareholdings. "My objective is to see that this organisation is professionally-driven. Post my retirement, it will be led by the second in command or the next generation of employees and not by the family or my partners’ family. Succession should be in terms of merit. That’s the inspiration I gained from Mr Narayan Murthy," he says.

Charting The path
The zeal behind Nair setting up a company was to provide the construction industry the best-in consultancy services. The idea was to give present an opportunity to a wider audience of developers and promoters involved in industries other than real estate alone to collaborate with the best-in-class services.

Challenges and risks
The biggest challenge in the Indian real estate industry is that it is still very unorganised. Also the acceptance of professionals in the field of consultancy has been picking up only in the last decade or so. Nair started his career from a grass root level and grew to the position of a CEO. This journey was tough to scale and demanded many sacrifices and sheer determination and hard work. Having led a company, for Nair, being an entrepreneur was equally risky. This decision involved moving out of a comfortable corporate life and pluging into the uncertainities of entreprenuership. To add to the woes is the growth of construction industry which has slowed down since 2008. The risk at all times is related to the liquidity in market across all verticals of construction. There is a constant fear of promoters running out of cash thus affecting the projects, leading to delayed completion, and even projects turning NPA at times and stressing the promoters further. But through all these ambiguities, being straight-forward and maintaining transparency in all his business relationships has helped him triupmh over them and emerge as a leading light in the industry.

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