BIM as an integrated environment – BuildEXT presentation at the INFOTÉR Contech 2025 conference

On October 16–17, the INFOTÉR Contech 2025 conference was held at the Anna Grand Hotel in Balatonfüred, bringing together leading domestic and international players in the construction industry, real estate development, and digitalization for a two-day professional event.

In the BIM section of the conference, Csaba Livják, founder and CEO of BuildEXT, gave a presentation entitled “BIM as an integrated environment.”

What do you get when you invest in BIM?

The central theme of the presentation was not about software or modeling techniques, but rather what those investing in BIM projects are actually purchasing. The examples presented made it clear that the label “BIM” alone is no guarantee of success, and that a significant proportion of projects fail precisely because participants assume that everyone understands the same thing by it.

One recurring theme of the presentation was that practice regularly overrides preliminary plans – Csaba Livják illustrated this with Mike Tyson’s oft-quoted phrase: “Everyone has a plan… until they get punched in the face.“

Good intentions, differing interests

The analysis presented also highlighted why BIM projects, often launched with good intentions, frequently fail. Company managers, project managers, and engineering teams understandably have different focuses, which can easily lead to conflict without coordination and conscious integration.

In this context, the Dunning–Kruger effect was also mentioned: when participants overestimate their own BIM maturity, while the complexity of the project would require much greater awareness and experience.

The role of the BIM integrator

One of the key messages of the presentation was to clarify the role of the BIM integrator. Not as another industry player, but as a connecting element who:

• sees the whole project as a whole,
• able to coordinate business, management, and engineering interests,
• and provides real decision support throughout the entire investment lifecycle.

At the end of the presentation, specific examples were used to illustrate the costs of this approach and how it pays off in practice—not on a theoretical level, but based on project experience.