BI Group, the largest holding company in Kazakhstan, has been successfully implementing IT innovations in its projects for years now, while promoting technological progress in the construction of residential buildings and apartments. So, in 2020, they presented a new and improved IT product – BIG App. This is an app for BI Group customers that simplifies their interactions with apartment and house maintenance issues under a single management company.
The success of BI Group in numbers
The holding began in 1995, and by 2001, the parent company, BI Group, was established. Two years later, the developer had more than 1,000 employees. After achieving a high market share back in the 2000s, BI Group launched its own production of building materials, increased their production capacity, and branched into new construction areas such as commercial real estate, transportation solutions, industrial facilities, and more.
But 2007 was the watershed year for BI Group – the company was reorganized into a holding company, within which the construction, industrial, investment, and development divisions began to operate. Currently, the holding consists of the following companies: BI Development, BI Construction & Engineering, and BI Education.
In 2014, BI Group became the first and only developer in Kazakhstan to make ENR’s list of the Top-250 Global Contractors. And since 2018, the holding has maintained a leading position in the housing market in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, and Almaty, the southern metropolis, having built 7,000 apartments in one year.
In 2021, the company sold the first housing in the capital built using modular housing construction technology. The building blocks for this house were manufactured at BI Group’s own innovative factory, ModeX. There are a select few enterprises in the world one could compare it to. The best practices of the US, Singapore and Germany have been adopted here, applying automated processes to reduce construction time and improve its quality. For example, a sixteen-storey residential complex with an area of nine-thousand square meters was built in just six months.
By the end of 2023, BI Development had built 1.6 million square meters of housing in six different regions of Kazakhstan, commissioned fifty-seven residential complexes, and provided approximately twenty-seven-thousand people with real estate over the course of the year. During the same period, the holding company entered the Uzbek market with a bespoke brand.
BI Service, which is part of the holding’s structure and provides services for complex maintenance of residential buildings, is also showing growth. In 2023, it served 6.3 million square meters of housing and about four-hundred-thousand residents.
The unique Green Quarter project
Over time, BI Group Holding has mastered new elements of housing construction, including affordable housing for the general population, premium class housing, innovative residential complex projects, and hotels. One of the most exciting aspects of the Kazakh holding is their unique Green Quarter project, certified under the Leadership Energy and Environmental Design rating system. This is the most environmentally friendly and innovative project ever undertaken by BI Group. It involves the construction of a residential complex near an artificial reservoir with parks, squares, and alleys that create the atmosphere of a “mini-city” providing all of the amenities necessary for its population. A distinctive feature of the project is the use of smart home technologies, which work harmoniously alongside nature.
The Bigville concept
Since 2021, BI Group has been actively promoting the idea of Bigville, “a city within a city.” The developer determines the lifestyle needs of a person and adjusts the whole block to those needs. BI Group is planning a residential complex, concentrating all of the necessary infrastructure elements there: clinics, schools, kindergartens, entertainment facilities, shops, catering establishments, parking lots, parks, etc. Equipped residential complexes allow apartment owners to buy groceries without leaving home, access an indoor parking lot, and a bus stop five minutes from home. And this is just the start of the benefits that a resident of Bigville can expect.
BI Service
A distinctive feature of the holding is the availability of BI Service. This is a unique set of resources that the construction holding provides to its clients as part of the maintenance of residential buildings and apartments. The interaction between the developer and the homeowners does not end with the signing of a lease. BI Group, represented by special staff, provides localized service for a minimum of sixty years after the purchase. Thus, the developer provides prompt solutions to the everyday issues that arise in an apartment building. The house is managed by one single company, and not by a large number of LLP, KSK, and other public organizations. Thanks to this personal approach, each client has the opportunity to contact a single management company and promptly resolve issues through a mobile app. The company takes proper care of such basic measures as waterproofing, thermal insulation, lighting and sound solutions, yard decoration, landscaping, and much more. At the same time, everyone can take an active part in solving certain problems.
Why the BI Group?
Kazakhstan is one of the countries which excels in Information Technology. This makes it a fertile environment for creating and running a progressive business in the field of construction and innovative technologies. The rapid development of digitization in the republic contributed to the accelerated development of the holding company when it comes to organizing residential spaces, as well as creating formidable industrial structures in Kazakhstan and nearby foreign countries. Due to these incredible results, BI Group took sixth place in Forbes Kazakhstan’s ranking of the “50 largest private companies of the Republic of Kazakhstan — 2023” with an annual revenue of 658.1 billion tenge which equals 1.4 billion dollars. The holding’s indicators and ratings reflect its financial reliability and meaningful allocation of resources.
