Engineering consultancy group B-Act Quantum Vintage is making a difference with its work in central and eastern Europe, including in Ukraine. We spoke to the company’s CEO Adam Białachowski about the challenges they have faced and his thoughts on the future.
Engineering consultancy group B-Act Quantum Vintage is making a difference with its work in central and eastern Europe, including in Ukraine. We spoke to the company’s CEO Adam Białachowski about the challenges they have faced and his thoughts on the future.
B-Act/Vintage Consulting CEO Adam Białachowski and his business partners Miron Klomfas and Jakub Białachowski are forward-thinking industry professionals, keen to talk about and promote their company’s work and the difference it makes. Białachowski has been involved as a volunteer representative with international engineering federation FIDIC since its annual conference in Seoul back in 2012 and this year the business is one of the sponsors of FIDIC’s latest Global Infrastructure Conference which takes place in Geneva this September.
So, why does he think FIDIC conferences are important for organisations like his? “They provide a great opportunity for companies like ours that are SMEs to interact with larger firms, increase their network and to have access to knowledge that wouldn’t be available to them otherwise,” says Białachowski. “They also offer us access to leading world professionals and enable us to meet them and learn from the networking opportunities we can tap into.
“The conference also gives a voice and a platform for companies like ours from a part of the world – central and eastern Europe – that isn’t heard of as much and gives us access to a global audience where we can talk about key issues like public procurement and price-based selection with key international players,” he says.
B-Act Quantum Vintage focuses its work in central and eastern Europe, with main offices in Kiev, Bydgoszcz and Warsaw. Their main business is in Poland and they have engaged around 200 engineering professionals in Poland, Ukraine, Romania and the Baltic states and they also have an ongoing project in Brazil.
“We are mainly a supervision company providing consulting engineering services as an engineer under FIDIC contracts and we also have a division of contract administration and claims consulting,” says Białachowski. “We started out in the water and wastewater sector 28 years ago and now we do everything – railways, roads, hydro-technical and energy,” he explains.
Well placed to take advantage of new opportunities
The company is also keen to work in other areas and locations and is open to cooperating with global companies. Białachowski hopes that the links that they can forge in Geneva at FIDIC’s annual global gathering will benefit his organisation and position it well to take advantage of future opportunities.
The firm’s work in Ukraine is already notable and being talked about in the industry. I put it to him that working in a conflict zone must have been challenging and difficult. “It has certainly been challenging and for the first three months of the war it was a chaotic time with people concerned about security and the banking system closed off meant that we could not wire money in and out of the country,” says Białachowski. “Things have stabilised since then and although it isn’t back to business as usual, the Ukrainian resolve is very strong and people are trying to do business as much as you are able in a conflict situation,” he said.
A “matter of honour” to help people in Ukraine
So, how does he feel about working to help people in such a situation?
“Especially at the beginning of the war, our Ukrainian employees were very resilient and wanted to continue to work despite the cash flow problems,” he said. “It was a matter of honour and a need to help people. We are involved in projects in the western side of Ukraine from Lviv to the Polish border, so certain bridges were of strategic importance to our clients and we provided the services not knowing what was going to happen. The credit for this should go to our local partners and to the Ukrainian professionals on site willing to take risks and to continue working,” said Białachowski.
Looking to the future, what are his hopes and how does he see things shaping up? “We have to be optimistic,” he says. “Western Europe, the European Union and America are putting money into the region where we work, whether this is military infrastructure or roads, and the central and eastern European region is being seen again as an important place to invest in going forward.
Central and eastern Europe – an important place to do business
“The prospect of a lot of loans and grants from the EU, the World Bank or the EBRD means that there will be more money coming into the region so potentially this could be a very interesting time for us as soon as the conflict stabilises. There will be much work to do and we are standing ready to assist,” Białachowski explains.
“I think that B-Act Quantum Vintage is well positioned, especially in the roads sector where we have been the number one consultant in that area with the largest portfolio of projects. Poland has always been a bridge between the west and the east because of its geographical location and its historical position. We understand Ukrainian and eastern culture but we also understand western culture, so I think we are a perfect fit to help international organisations that are willing to take the risk and start building their portfolio in the Ukraine.”
It’s clear that the insightful leadership of Adam Białachowski, Miron Klomfas and Jakub Białachowski, together with their company’s access to hard-working partners in the region, will see B-Act Quantum Vintage continuing to make an impact with the work that they do. They are certainly an organisation to watch with keen interest over the months and years ahead.
Click here to find out more about B-Act Quantum Vintage and the services they offer.
