Exclusive interview: Yves Padrines, CEO, Nemetschek Group

Nemetschek Group is based in Germany

It illustrates just how large the group is when, after being asked to summarise the company and all the different brands, Yves Padrines, CEO, is still talking as the clock ticks well past the five-minute mark. “Sorry, it was a long answer,” he laughs.

Nemetschek Group has 12 different brands divided into four divisions. Some of their most well-known brands include: Bluebeam, Allplan, Graphisoft and Vectorworks. Padrines tells us that, “We have around seven million users of our products and solutions across the globe. We have 85 locations and 50% of our revenue is in Europe, 40% in North America, and 10% in Asia Pacific.”

They are a global company but Padrines says there is more scope for expansion. “We have only 10% of the revenue in Asia Pacific, and it’s more in Australia and New Zealand. We are good in Japan, okay in Singapore. But if you look at India, for example, we are very small, and India is the third largest construction market in the world. This is why we recently launched Nemetschek India, representing all our brands, instead of having each of our brands separated.”

One of the biggest problems regarding construction technology has been data that doesn’t talk to each other. This is something Padrines is all too aware of. He says that this is one of the reasons they have pushed so hard for open standards. “We strongly believe that’s key because the market is highly fragmented,” he comments.

“Especially if you go to larger, complex projects, you can easily end up with 30, 40, or even more different software solutions used. You need to make sure there is a bridge between all these different solutions so that there is more interoperability.”

Digital twins and AI

Yves Padrines, CEO, Nemetschek Group

Padrines says that this desire for open data was at the heart of its digital twin solution that they launched at the end of last year (dTwin) and that it was important it was an open data digital twin solution.

He concedes that construction is behind other industries when it comes to digital twins but says that the combination of historical data and new live sensor data makes it suited to, “focus on complex buildings, airports, hospital, large universities, data centres, where they can benefit highly from the predictive maintenance aspects of such solutions. And, of course, energy management efficiency. Today with a lot of new technology, you can have a scan to BIM solution very quickly from a building; it’s not so complex.”

Another new venture is an AI innovation hub. In as good an indication as any regarding how seriously they are taking the project, it will be led by two executives joining from Google. The hub has three main objectives: the first is to make sure all the different brands are being integrated and utilising the same AI, the second is to look at external use cases that can be adapted and the third – and arguably the most interesting – is disruption.

“We are trying to disrupt ourselves, trying to disrupt the overall ecosystem. That’s why they will build some small internal startups, which are independent from the brands because the brands will have difficulties to disrupt themselves. We are also investing more in startups, in external innovation to disrupt ourself. Over the last couple of years, we invested in around a dozen different startups, especially around generative design, generative AI sustainability software.”

The CEO says that he thinks AI will have a “big impact” and help their customers to be “much more productive, especially with repetitive tasks.” However, he adds that, “we want to make sure that we do it in an ethical and trustworthy way for the overall lifecycle of the construction industry.”

There’s no doubt that AI is still a relatively new tool but a powerful one. The more data AI has the better it learns, so Nemetschek with its seven million users are in a strong position. Padrines adds that AI is going to be, “a revolution for the industry, for all industries.”

AI is a huge opportunity for construction technology

The future of construction technology

One of the consequences of the pandemic was an acceleration of the digitalisation in the construction industry. Despite this, the level is still at a low level but that can be spinned as a positive: construction has a host of productivity gains waiting for it, and with more productivity comes less CO2 and more money saved.

“We have a huge opportunity of growth,” asserts Padrines. “When you look at the challenges that the construction industry has, 40% of global CO2 is coming from the construction industry. And not only from the design and planning and construction phase, but the operate and manage phase.

“Then 20% of the material used in construction projects are wasted. When you look at where we are in terms of delivering on time and budget – especially for more complex projects – 90% of construction projects are over time or over budget, and there is a huge issue with a lack of manpower.”

The CEO believes that technology can play a major role in these issues. Interestingly, he also believes that this is something that isn’t just being looked at by the bigger players.

“We strongly believe that business as usual is not an option anymore for a lot of players in construction. You can see that not only larger companies, but small and medium businesses are thinking about; how can I change the way I work? How can I streamline my workflow? How can I have tools so that I deliver on time and budget? How can I collaborate better? How can I design greener buildings?

“That’s why the level of digitalisation is increasing and that’s why, despite the fact that the construction industry is facing troubles, the construction software industry is still growing double digits as a market overall. If you look at the BIM software market – this is going to double within the next four to five years.”

Increasing regulations by governments – he cites the example of Singapore where, since 2015, any projects that are greater than 5,000m2 in size have to use BIM – will be another important cog in the wheel of technology adoption.

Looking to the future he says, “Clearly there will be a big revolution in terms of technology adoption. I think there will be more and more adoption of the digital solution to help the overall industry, especially in construction, to streamline the workflow. AI would clearly be a predominant and central technology across the overall life cycle. And I think, thanks to that, then in five years, we will be able to see that we are able to make the construction industry more efficient and also more sustainable.”

An industry that produces less emissions, has less wastage, higher profit margins and uses technology in smarter ways is a revolution that the whole sector can get behind.