Travel agencies are promoting: The upcoming FIFA World Cup is taking place “in the most beautiful corner of the world.” Meanwhile, the country has undergone remarkable economic development in the past few years. Despite rampant stereotypes that still abound, the Republic of South Africa has made great strides. Not the least of which thanks to clever regulatory measures, like the “Black Economic Empowerment,” the real estate sector is benefiting as well.

Read the interview and learn what it’s all about and how an insider sees the country’s economic situation. You’ll find Thuto Bhunu, conject partner in Sandton/Johannesburg, in a conversation with Elke Tonscheidt on South Africa today and in 10 years.

P.S. If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more: This is an excerpt from our new company magazine conject connect. You can download all the articles (e.g. on Dubai, Innovation Management or an interview with Federal Minister of the Environment Norbert Röttgen) as a PDF.

Antun Kovač in 2008, a true expert in market, helped set up conject’s Vienna office. The objective: To establish the company in Austria as well as to promote business in Central and Eastern European countries. Why he was so successful and what Empress Elizabeth of Austria had to do with it.

“Vienna is ‘The Gateway to the East’ and always will be,” says Antun Kovač. And the native Croatian knows what he’s talking about. When he was three, his family moved from Croatia to Germany. It was here that he also began his professional career in project development before then deciding to return to Eastern Europe for several years. Kovač worked six years for LIDL in Croatia and was responsible for expansion and for all building projects of the discount chain.

The project manager then came to conject in 2008 and – together with conject co-founder Frank Weiß – opened the Austrian branch office. “This was absolutely the right decision since Austria’s ties with Eastern Europe are very close in both tradition and culture,” states the conject manager. What few people are aware of: This close tie can be traced back to Empress Elisabeth, also known as “Sissi” of Austria-Hungary and the Austro-Hungarian Compromise which she helped push. This lay the cornerstone for the good relations between Austria and Eastern Europe – from which companies are able to profit even today.

But conject itself has also been successful in Austria right from the start. Kovač: “Currently conject is involved in the new construction of six hospitals, all new construction projects for the State of Steiermark are being planned with us and ultimately Wien Holding GmbH is deploying all conject products for its new and existing buildings.” In addition, conject is currently involved in the state’s most important prestige project: “aspern Die Seestadt Wiens” located in Vienna’s 22nd District, Donaustadt is one of the largest urban development projects in Europe. Construction is planned on the grounds of the former Aspern Airfield with a surface area of 2.4 million m² (this corresponds to an area equaling the 7th and 8th Vienna Districts), resulting in a total of 2,200,000 m² gross floor space by 2028. 8,500 housing units are planned for 20,000 residents and 20,000 workplaces, which is broken down into 15,000 for offices and service providers, as well as 5,000 for manufacturing and commercial companies. As a result, “aspern Die Seestadt Wiens” will become a location for research, development, and education in Vienna. This project is being planned with conject’s support.

After all, the Vienna office is currently extremely active in the Eastern European region and confident that further projects will also be acquired soon in Rumania and Russia – thanks to “Sissi” and Antun Kovač, as well as the entire team, including Livia Rainsberger, Olga Rimsky-Korsakova and Frank Weiß.

Ralf Händl is now supporting the conject group of partners in its international expansion, primarily in Asia, the entire Middle East and North Africa. In the time from 1986 to 2001 he studied and received a doctorate in economics and worked in senior management positions for three well-known construction companies - Bauer Spezialtiefbau, Walter Bau, Bilfinger + Berger. Here as well, work took him abroad, mainly in North America, Southeast Asia, as well as in Australia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

“Over the years, I have focused primarily on the development, realization and management of international business divisions, cooperations and large-scale projects,” says Händl. His most recent business trips for conject took him to Hong Kong and Cairo. “The market is moving particularly in these centers,” he states and emphasizes that: “The importance of Facility Management is on the rise internationally, especially in regards to the sustainability and energy efficiency of properties."

From 2001 to 2006, Ralf Händl was a member of the board at Drees & Sommer AG, also most recently as partner and executive manager responsible for the international business development of Drees & Sommer Gruppe. From 1982 to 1986 he studied economics at the University of Munich and earned his doctorate here from 1990 und 1994 while working at the same time.

Highway construction is always an extremely complex project, in which costs depend on many factors. The underlying conditions of each road, the resulting level of complexity (bridges, tunnels), as well as costs for the planning process, appraisals and consulting services of engineers, the approval process and accompanying investments (noise protection barriers, roadside greenery, variable traffic signs, etc.) all play a major role.

The maintenance project of the Autobahn A25 of the LSBG (Landesbetrieb Straßen, Brücken und Gewässer) is currently in the execution planning phase. The LSBG is an enterprise of the Authority for Urban Development and Environmental Affairs in Hamburg. Acting as representative for the owner and as project manager, it coordinates the project participants from over ten companies and segments under a great deal of pressure from time constraints and to maintain quality.

“LSBG deploys the Project Platform conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project. to meet these challenges. In the Project Space, the surveying, road construction and civil engineering departments are able to work together efficiently, and external planners can be coordinated smoothly and securely by various sub-project managers,” LSBG project manager Claudia Latzer explains.

“Drawings, which would otherwise be spread out on the usual data storage media, can be “picked up” by all the participants in Drawing Management. The most current version of the complex referenced framework planning is available to all participants in the planning process through an easily traced filing system. All project participants are therefore able to uphold the necessary level of planning quality at all times.”

From the company’s viewpoint, the following is a list of advantages associated with using conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project., which at the same time represent decisive criteria for deploying this platform:

• digital delivery and distribution of extremely large amounts of data with no time lag
• inclusion of external employees and companies as well as
• reduction in the administrative burden on project management

Social Media is going to be more and more important - for companies, too. An example of figures: When Twitter started in 2007 an average number of 5,000 short messages had been sent per day. In 2008 this number rose to 300,000 and in 2009 up to 2.5 million. Nowadays Twitter user release 50 million tweets per day due reports of the microblogging service. Last year the data traffic increased by 1,400 percent. conject, too, is busy at twittering.

We send notes for news and events of the real estate and software business every day - successfully: A large target group picks them up, forwards these to own networks. News spread fast as the wind, old connections intensify, new contacts are created easily. Positive side effect for our customers: We do not only write, we keep ourselves posted, worldwide and always up-to-date. And we like to listen.
Maybe to you soon?! Just go ahead and follow us at www.twitter.com/conject_com

The independent “Marktübersicht CAFM-Software 2010” (2010 Market Survey of CAFM Software)  was released just a few weeks ago. The well-known, 172-page directory provides information on 33 software products for Computer Aided Facility Management as well as on 10 companies specialized in implementing these IT tools. conject is among them.

The market survey is published by the trade journal “Der Facility Manager” and makon GmbH & Co. KG, Nuremberg, as well as the German Facility Management Association e.V. – GEFMA. It provides potential CAFM software users with a comprehensive, current and objective overview of the range of German-language software products for Facility Management.

The data sheets serve as the focal point. They give detailed service profiles on all CAFM programs. In addition to general information on the provider and the software, key areas for application, interfaces, technical information, operation, visualization, evaluation, training/support and costs are also presented on four pages for each provider. An overview of ten specialists implementing CAFM software in companies provides additional, valuable information.

The market survey can be purchased for €45.00 (incl. VAT., plus. €2.40 Euro shipping) from “Der Facility Manager” – Leserservice, Mandichostraße 18, 86504 Merching, Tel. 08233/381-361, Fax 08233/381-212, e-mail: andrea.siegmann©forum-zeitschriften.de or under: www.facility-manager.de in the Online Shop of “Der Facility Manager.”

Are you already working with a Project Space? Then you’re familiar with the advantages like central availability of drawings, simple distribution of documents for planning and execution, overlapping documentation and much more. But then you’re also aware of the problem that you can, or rather must, work with two different means of electronic communication – the Project Space and e-mail system.

But this needn't be!

Often you have to choose which of the two systems to use for a specific distribution of drawings. Often distribution is carried out using both systems – which means twice the work. But not only that: If you want to track processes, you’ll need to check both systems for the messages and documents sent. How much time have you already spent doing this?

The solution to these problems is conject MailGateway:

1. Read, answer and forward Project Space messages

You can read Project Space messages easily in your mail program. But not just read them, you can also answer them and change the recipient. You will then find the corresponding e-mails as messages in the Project Space.

If you receive project-relevant e-mails from project participants who don’t work with conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project., you can simply forward them to conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project. under Communication. You can use this option yourself, you’ll never have to store e-mail files again or even file them as PDFs.

2. Better and easier administration of attachments

Moreover, the conject MailGateway solves the problem of emails not reaching recipients because the attachments are too big. They can now be downloaded directly from the system using the download link.

3. Ensure availability conveniently – thanks to the conject MailGateway

In project work, people constantly need all sorts of documents. Today they are found easiest in Project Spaces, preferably in conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project.. This includes not only drawings and other documents, but above all the various forms of correspondence. A substantial part of this correspondence is carried out in electronic form, the biggest portion via e-mail. Since most of these e-mails come through project participants’ email program

ms, they are not included in conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project.. As a result, they are unavailable to the project team, and the user must search in both conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project. as well as his mail program to track communication processes. In addition, the attached files must be stored again separately in a database.

In order to guarantee availability of e-mails in the Project Space, project-relevant mails must be transferred to conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project.. In the past, two different methods were used to carry this out.
One way was to save e-mails as MSG or EML files in folders of conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project.. At best, this method can be used for archiving purposes, simply because it isn’t possible to read these files directly in conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project..

For this reason, the second variation was often used instead, converting e-mails to PDF files and uploading them to conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project.. They can then be easily opened directly in the Project Space. But unfortunately, however, now all of the attachments are missing. One can only hope they’re in the right place of the Project Space.

The disadvantage to both of these methods is that the communication cannot be searched for or found using the corresponding parameters, such as sender, recipient and date sent, if they weren’t logged separately a second time. This additional logging makes both methods work-intensive and error-prone, as do the manual upload and storage, as well as creation of PDFs.

The best solution: conject MailGateway

The conject MailGateway now makes it possible for you to document e-mails in conjectPMpm. is an internet-based project space connecting project managers, architects, investors and all other participants of a construction project. simply, easily and without losing any information. Forward e-mails to the respective conject project. They’ll be available to you there as conject messages, easy to read, containing the original attachments and they can be found using the search function. Entirely without uploading, PDF printing or even logging the communications parameters.