Excellence, Digitalization, Keys to Success Amid Sector Crisis

Q: What changes have led Grupo Casgo to success? 

A: Since our founding on June 29, 1993, we have had the opportunity to work in 23 states across Mexico on a variety of projects, including the expansions of the Tijuana Airport and the Cozumel Airport. We specialize in residential buildings, public infrastructure, public spaces, institutional buildings, commercial spaces and hotels, among others. We have worked in project phases and modalities such as pre-construction design and engineering, structural engineering, and even turnkey projects. 

Since the company started, we have stayed on top of all technological trends and innovations, while recruiting young Mexican talent. As a result, we have been the recipients of the three most important awards given to developers in Mexico. The first award is the CEMEX Construction Award, which we received for a mixed-use development in Mexico City that included a mall. The second is the award given by the Obras publication from the Expansión publishing house for building the Cirque Du Soleil theater in Cancun. Thirdly, is the Lieberman award given by the Mexican Construction Industry Chamber (CMIC). We earned that top prize in 2018 for building “La Casona,” which is Tequila Patrón Spirits’ signature hotel in Jalisco that we built through a turnkey project modality. We are an ISO 9000-certified company and many of our directors are certified by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Finally, all of our projects are uploaded to a BIM (Building Information Modeling) platform. 

Q: How has the company adapted to the recent events of this year?  

A: We are grateful we took the necessary steps to get ready for 2020, such as digitalizing all of our projects and processes. As a result, we were able to transition to remote work and home office modalities without any difficulties. During the spring, we were working in nine states. When the lockdowns began and construction activities were not considered to be essential economic activities, we had to interrupt the work in six of those states. Today, we are now working in 10 states. Starting in June, construction was finally deemed an essential economic activity and that helped a great deal. By the end of 2020, we expect to recapture business that we lost due to these interruptions. 

Our portfolio is composed of projects for the private sector. For example, tourism was enormously affected but our hotel projects in Quintana Roo and Baja California are considered long-term developments that had already experienced years of preconstruction preparation, with construction phases taking up an average of two years. As a result, these projects were less vulnerable to a lack of investment and capital influx in the sector. In fact, mixed-use projects were more affected because they depended on short-term financing structures like presales. Regarding the construction of public spaces, we are building another Cirque Du Soleil theater, this one in the Nayarit Riviera, in Nuevo Vallarta. Projects like this were luckily at a phase in their construction development where more flexibility could be applied to their design and accommodate the post-COVID-19 need for more open spaces.

Grupo Casgo is a Mexican designer and developer of major construction projects based in the state of Jalisco. The company specializes in a variety of sectors and categories that include roads, hotels, educational facilities, commercial spaces, entertainment venues and office space.