How professional excellence will drive India’s competitiveness

Professional excellence will unlock growth and value

India is developing a manufacturing and industrial base that can compete with the best in the world – supported by an ambitious programme of infrastructure investment. Ruturaj Govilkar, managing director for South Asia at Mott MacDonald, explains how focusing on professional excellence will help the infrastructure and development industry to support growth and unlock value for clients and communities.

India is already one of Asia’s most important trade, finance and supply chain hubs and planned investment in world class infrastructure and urban renewal will help the economy become more agile and globally competitive.

The infrastructure and development industry has a huge responsibility to apply professional excellence in the delivery of India’s strong pipeline of industrial and infrastructure projects. There is an intense pressure to compete on cost in our industry – greater awareness of the importance of professionalism will unlock value for clients and communities.

What professionalism means to me

The technical credentials we gain through our careers are only part of the professional journey. It is through our integrity, collaboration and respect for people and the environment that we really bring value to projects and can have a transformative impact. To achieve professional excellence, we need to be adaptable, ready to respond to evolving industry challenges, market demand and rapid technological advances.

That only happens when organisations invest in the growth of their people. One of the things that attracted me to Mott MacDonald is the importance placed on providing people with opportunities for skills development, career advancement and personal fulfilment – whatever their role.

We are more than engineers – we are also architects, designers, management consultants, HR and financial professionals and many more.  We give our people exposure to a wide array of domestic and global projects so they don’t get trapped working in a single domain or sector.

What our employees often say they value is being part of ‘something bigger’, contributing to real-world problems across a range of sectors, which bring significant benefits to communities and the environment.

While the technical expertise of our 1,500 employees in India is important, it is how we bring their skills to life as an organisation that really delivers value for clients and communities.

How professionalism delivers value

Sharing knowledge across our community of 20,000 multidisciplinary employees globally is one way that we spread international best practice  in urban planning, sustainable transport, manufacturing design, clean energy, skills development and public health.

In India, world class manufacturing and industrial clients, such as JCB, are turning to us to develop their facilities because our regional team of engineers and strategic advisers have a track record of delivering sustainable long-term returns on capital investments.

For example, our engineers and digital experts use modelling software to look at every aspect of a plant’s design and operation and recommend the optimum set-up to improve resource and energy efficiency.

Our commitment to the safety and the wellbeing of colleagues and communities means that we help clients develop plants that improve ventilation, reduce noise pollution and create better employment opportunities for men and women.

Our project management excellence has helped to deliver affordable cancer-care hospitals in the state of Assam, providing treatment for 15,000 patients per year. Our design, enabling standardised construction and an innovative approach to managing seismic risk, contributed to 20% cost savings across the programme.

Cross-sector collaboration, problem solving and connected thinking has led to professional execution on large-scale multi-dimensional projects, such as the 800km Visakhapatnam–Chennai Industrial Corridor in Andhra Pradesh.

Our role goes well beyond delivery of vital infrastructure, such as a reliable 24/7 piped water supply, which reduced household water storage and energy costs. We also advised on policy reforms to improve the ease of doing business; ran community engagement sessions; provided skills training for officials; and developed an action plan for gender equality and social inclusion.

Whatever the sector, we demonstrate to clients how investment in digital tools can improve coordination on complex projects, improving decision-making, reducing errors and cutting time.

Our digital specialists in Bangalore have recently been responsible for helping our geotechnical engineers to drive cost and time efficiencies on the UK’s High Speed 2 rail project. DAARWIN is the first and only ground engineering software to use machine learning algorithms to speed up analysis of ground movement data during excavation work and update design models.

Promoting diversified careers

Contributing to international projects is hugely rewarding and can be a career springboard for everyone involved. It helps us to attract and retain talent despite India’s intensely competitive market for technology and engineering talent.

Don’t take my word for it – you can read more on our career stories page where we celebrate talent from across the business, such as Sujay Kale and Govind Kota.

Sujay is currently building information management (BIM) lead for electrical works on Saudi giga project THE LINE at NEOM, a futuristic, linear city that is reshaping urban living. He is focused on using intelligent data systems, powered by artificial intelligence and automation, to develop smarter, more sustainable energy infrastructure. Govind is currently living and working in Singapore, where he is leading BIM coordination on a large-scale project.

Many of our Indian employees have transformed their careers at Mott MacDonald by grabbing opportunities to develop their careers in different directions and move to different parts of the world.

My colleague Veena Gupta joined Mott MacDonald as a graduate in 2002 and is now part of our senior management team for South Asia. She says our inclusive culture and support from mentors in the business helped her take up leadership roles and pursue her passion for renewable energy and the environment. Career mobility brings our diverse global business closer together and is vital for continuous improvement and growth.

Shared ownership, shared responsibility

We have been an employee-owned organisation for many years and it is a distinctive part of who we are. We recently enhanced our employee ownership model to give everyone a stake in the business and a greater voice to shape its future. It helps us to reward professional excellence and encourages employees to take shared responsibility for the delivering value for our clients and the communities we serve.

In India, I am committed to fostering a culture where people to feel trusted and supported to do their best work. The professional excellence of our talented teams will be vital in driving our future performance and showing industry leadership on the country’s ambitious programme of infrastructure investment.