The Construction Business is a Matter of Trust

Market Építő Plc. that celebrates its 25th anniversary this year has become the leading high-rise construction company in Hungary. The company, which attaches importance to the application of innovative solutions and the comprehensive use of quality, health and safety and energy management systems, also earned the title of ‘Construction Company of the Year’ in 2019.

Market Építő Plc. is the flagship of a group of companies, the general contractor company that controls the operation of the other members of the group and it is also the one that provides the background services like accounting, legal affairs, HR, IT and other such areas.

Valued employees
The founder and CEO of Market Építő, Sándor Scheer has often emphasized that the characteristic that probably helped make Market Építő a successful company was diligence. Speaking to Diplomacy&Trade, he points out that the work they do must be characterized by diligence and humility. “I believe this is one of our strengths.” He also retained employees even under less favorable economic circumstances so that he would have the human resources to restart after the crisis. “We insist on keeping our employees because they represent a real value for us, the special knowledge and professionalism are very important for the company. This is why I hold on to them now as I did in the past. We continue to build this company together.”
Market Építő as a brand is widely known in Hungary. Sándor Scheer is of the view that “the notions associated in the mind of the public with our company are reliability, quality work, design and competence. In order to build this company and build this brand, we have to be aware of what the public and people in our profession think about us.”

Working in a competitive environment
Another issue often emphasized by the CEO is the importance of competitiveness. “The variety of the work we do requires that we are competitive. Most of the work we do is commissioned by the private sector under very competitive conditions. Multinational companies, real estate developers and institutional investors, who are frequent players in real estate development, are well aware of the going prices. Competition keeps us focused on bringing out our best effort. Beyond that, we continuously examine and analyze our own operation, trying to focus on all elements where we can improve our efficiency, our competitiveness,” the CEO explains.

MOL Campus
A fine example of a competitive environment is the new office complex of the Hungarian oil and gas group MOL in Budapest. The constructor of the MOL Campus was selected in an international tender of four rounds, a tender won by Market Építő.
Given MOL’s disciplined and well-structured procurement system, Sándor Scheer believes the decisive factor must have been the price “but I hope that apart from that, it was a point of consideration that every construction project is a matter of trust. Investing in construction is very important for the person or business that commissions this activity, be it headquarters, a factory or even’s someone’s house. For this reason, it is an issue of mutual trust – the client must trust the builder and vice versa. In such projects, the contractor and its client are interdependent on each other.”
There has never been such a tall building in Budapest. However, it is not just the height but there are also other characteristics that make the MOL Campus stand out on the Hungarian office market: automation, corporate governance, building engineering, lighting, fire safety, elevators – these are all unique solutions that have not yet been applied in this country. He also highlights MOL’s professional approach. “We have built hundreds of thousands of square meters of office space but we have never worked on a project where the management of the client company took the whole thing so seriously with the involvement of studies and professionals at such a high level. In preparation for building this office complex, MOL thoroughly screened its operation model, bringing office space and operation to a common denominator. This became the fundamentals of the work we do there,” he adds.

Innovation serves the future
Innovation is important for the development of most companies. From this point of view, Market Építő is a unique firm on the Hungarian office building market. Sándor Scheer highlights that “studying the operation of and structure of foreign construction companies, we found 4-5 years ago that we lack a position that serves the future: that of a development director, an innovation leader, a person whose sole responsibility is how to improve the operation of our firm, how to introduce novelties, how to keep pace with the world in this profession and how not to be constrained by our Hungarian thinking.” Therefore, they created a new department, whose head is ranked as deputy CEO, and earmarked a substantial amount of funding for its operation. “Practically, the task of this area is to continuously modernize our operation and bring innovative ideas into our everyday life. What this means is that our thinking has changed and innovation starts where one begins to think about this and is involved in this day by day. As a result, we now have a subsidiary tasked with pre-fabrication, we are contemplating semi-finished products, we are following all exhibitions that are worth visiting in this profession, which is not easy nowadays under these pandemic conditions, monitoring all innovations and try to include them in our projects. I daresay that we are ahead of our competitors in this respect,” he points out.

Striving for sustainable operation
The company celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. As regards future goals, based on the five-year plan under preparation at Market Építő, the CEO says the emphasis is not on growing but on “making our operation as professional and efficient as possible while keeping an eye on sustainability. By the latter, I mean green ideas, innovation, maintaining the level of remuneration for our colleagues and keeping up the level of operation that I consider healthy and professional.”