by Ludwig Kalambacal

Opportunities abound in the Philippines, yet the capacity to capitalize on them is shaped by the country’s scale and growth potential. Despite the challenges, a positive outlook prevails, especially in the field of digital technology, drawing younger individuals to pursue careers in engineering.

In a recent interview on the sidelines of the 2023 Year in Infrastructure and Going Digital Awards conference held in Singapore, Kaushik Chakraborty, senior vice president and Asia-Pacific regional executive of Bentley Systems Inc., discussed the prospects within the Philippine infrastructure engineering landscape. He highlighted the evolving nature of the industry and underscored the role that digital technology plays in enticing a new generation of engineers.

Bentley Systems, as an infrastructure engineering software company, echoes this sentiment and expresses confidence in the Philippines’ robust engineering workforce. The company actively invests in local technical teams, development initiatives, and partnerships, emphasizing effective collaboration to provide optimal support to end-users.

Key government agencies, such as the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Department of Transportation (DOTr), have long benefited from Bentley’s products. This has fostered a decade-long relationship with local partners.

Highlighting the relationship between Bentley Systems and Philippine government agencies, Chakraborty emphasized the strength and endurance of their collaboration marked by shared initiatives to navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities in the dynamic landscape of infrastructure development.

Now, let’s delve into specific insights from the interview with Chakraborty.

Q&A with Kaushik Chakraborty:

• What inspired you to specialize in the Southeast Asian region, and how has this focus enriched your professional journey?

The world of infrastructure engineering offers a lot of opportunities to grow and advance. That’s why Southeast Asia is very important to us. As this region develops and there’s demand for buildings and new infrastructures and demand for maintaining the existing (infrastructure). 

• Can you provide an overview of the current trends and challenges in the infrastructure engineering landscape, particularly within the Southeast Asian region?

I would like to talk about the opportunities. When we look at the opportunities in this part of the world, there are more projects today than maybe five years ago. The scale, size, and complexity of these projects are bigger. The available engineering industry resource, for individuals to meet that demand, is the same or less than five years ago.

The opportunity for us is to how to bridge the skill gap. How to help the government and the private sector to bridge this gap. How do you become more productive is by using these technologies. We are helping our users to become more productive.

If you look especially Indonesia and the Philippines, there have been a lot of (Year in Infrastructure awards) finalists in the last five years from Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. It has been very encouraging. They’ve been using these technologies.

If you go to Manila, you see the Metro Manila subway project. If you go to the DPWH, there’s the public works and housing (projects). The adoption of digital methodologies and processes everywhere is a trendy thing.

• How do you see the prospect of the Philippines?

It’s very good. There’s a lot of development works, a lot of projects. The government there is looking for investments in infrastructure. It is a way of adding value to the economy. It is a way of becoming more productive.

It’s a very bright future for Bentley. And Bentley has a large investment in the Philippines as we have a lot of technology teams that are doing development. We are doing for global app products. We are doing support for the Asia-Pacific region, of course, addressing the Philippines local market, as well. With the local organizations in the Philippines, we want to sell other markets as locally as possible. 

• What specific strategy are you doing to penetrate the market or industry in the Philippines?

Our strategy is quite simple. We follow the trends of the projects. We have loyal user base who’ve been using Bentley applications for many, many years. And as they grow and mature and need more applications, we have a breadth of applications. One of the benefits we have is that Bentley builds a lot of breadth of engineering applications for different lifecycles of a project and also for different engineering disciplines. As users widen their scope of work, we see more opportunities to work with them and to serve them do their work.

• How is technology, especially Bentley Systems solutions, shaping the future of infrastructure development in the Asia-Pacific region?

This event here, 19 of 30-some finalists are from the Asia-Pacific region. So that is a reflection of how much our technologies in that direction are actually been used and being influenced by the developing projects of this part of the world.

Today, I would say easily that more than half of the infrastructure projects of the world is in the Asia-Pacific region. It means that any organization like ours has to look at the demand of that region and address those. We are a technology solutions provider to our users who then help design a building, the infrastructure, and deliver the project. 

If you look at the digital project delivery done by Oriental Consultants for the Manila Metro Subway (project), that (became) a finalist last year (2022) in London. The (company) works together with the DOTr. That’s a very innovative work, as mature, as forward looking as a project in rail anywhere else in the world.

• As a regional executive, what key factors do you believe contribute to successful infrastructure projects, and how do you navigate challenges unique to the Southeast Asian region?

Challenges in a project in this region, or any regions in the world, are always very similar. It also depends on the kind of project (you) do. Some challenges could be political. Some could be based on the acquisition of land. Some could be based on the condition of the place you want to do something. There are many challenges. Some challenges are the availability of resources—human resources and human capital.

So, the challenges are depending on the project. It’s very difficult to say that these are the three challenges that are universally applicable. It depends on every country. Singapore has a set of challenges which may not be the same as in Indonesia and which is definitely not the same as in the Philippines.

The one unique connecting factor (is) the willingness to look (for) innovative solutions, to think of technology as innovator. I think a lot of governments are now looking at infrastructure as an investment and that investment helps them have a better ROI to their citizens. So, it’s good for governments and the governments are realizing that building infrastructure is actually good for the nation, good for them, and leads to happier residents.  

• In the Philippines, what challenges are you currently experiencing?

In the Philippines, today, we see a lot of opportunities. I think they are limited by our scale and opportunity to grow which we have been doing in the recent past. We have been scaling up.

Of course, decision-making is not something which is in our hands. There are many complex factors to decision-making. Sometimes, as a technology vendor, you think about why can’t governments move faster. Then, you sit back and think about their constraints, they are moving faster but again it’s relative. I can’t compare how Singapore does things to how Philippines (does it). It’s completely a different context.

We see a lot of opportunities, and challenges are never challenges if you accept and find a common ground to move forward. And we see common ground. We see the opportunities. I think what digital technology is doing is attracting younger people to engineering again. The younger generation would like to be involved in professions where they are doing good.

If you look at the climate of challenges coming, building resilient infrastructure, all of these factors today are playing a very large and important part into the thought process of the funding agencies.

So, today, why is flood control for the DPWH an important aspect? Because they know that the climate change is coming. They’ll need to have better designed bridges and highways.

• So, politics and local law are not much of a challenge for you. But how about technology adoption?

Very positive. We see that the engineering workforce in the Philippines is extremely robust, extremely strong. We have very good technical team in the Philippines. Bentley, as an organization, has been scaling up our technical team and we have also a development team in the Philippines. We have an office in the Philippines, in Manila. We have also Bentley partners there to address the market. Our goal always is to work with our partners and to make sure that we provide the best technical support to our end-users.

• How does Bentley Systems collaborate with its partners and stakeholders, including the government and private enterprises, to drive sustainable and efficient infrastructure development in the Philippines?

The two biggest government agencies, the DPWH and DOTr, they’ve been users of our products and applications. We have a very effective way of supporting them through our local partners, who’ve been good partners for many, many years, over 10 years in the Philippines. Our partners share a very robust relationship both with Bentley as well as with the end-users. Together now, with our local technical teams in the Philippines, we are able to provide even a better support. Local languages are very important to us.

To support our teams in the Philippines, we also have teams in Singapore (that) also (has) the ability to support the Philippines in local language. Getting good people that can support the local language is important. We see our partners as another extension of our organization to support our end-users. I think our relationship with the agencies there is as good as ever.

• Given the dynamic nature of technology, how does your team stay ahead of the curve to ensure that Bentley Systems remains a leader in providing solutions for infrastructure engineering?

Well, learning, continuous learning. Technology evolves every day. The advantage we have, especially in this part of the world, is the advantage of a younger workforce, compared to maybe some of the best in this part of the world. Young workforce, they are very motivated to learn. They are very eager to learn. We provide them a lot of opportunities to constantly learn and to stay ahead.

Because our portfolio is so wide, we have competition from many different companies in different parts of the world. The main competitor in the industry I wouldn’t say it’s a company. But I think it’s (the) lack of providers and not making decisions to do things. That is still the single biggest inhibitor in any technology adoption field. 

When we see users who are excited to move ahead, think forward, and deliver on what they promise, we are excited to work with them to help them to be successful. Our job is to help them be successful. We are extremely excited about where the infrastructure engineering world going in the Philippines. We wish the government all the very best, and we wish that we’ll continue to invest in infrastructure and support the needs of the citizenry and the residents of the Philippines going ahead.