Bartels Consulting Engineers, one of the largest of its kind in the Netherlands, is no novice to the Bulgarian market, neither does it adhere strictly to original plans. Five years ago, when it launched operations in Gabrovo, central Bulgaria, it used its 10-strong office solely to outsource work on projects it had been winning at home, Bernie Schoppers, the company's country manager for Bulgaria, told The Sofia Echo.

The businessman, who has been combining his country manager position with project management chores in the company's Lochem office for two years now, has been travelling to Bulgaria every five weeks to oversee local operations.

Now his trips are increasingly chore-intensive because the company's Bulgarian operations are undergoing radical restructuring. Schoppers explains that the time is ripe to bring the company's full array of activities to Bulgaria. Bulgaria's ongoing real estate boom is fertile territory for the company as it seeks to entice foreign investors.

To achieve this, the executive is busy creating an office in Sofia, recruiting staff and establishing partnerships with local legal and design outfits to ensure it can bring its entire gamut of services to investors.

The business realignment has already resulted in downsizing Gabrovo office's staff from 10 to six people. Despite that it has managed to implement more 100 projects, Schoppers reveals. Energy now needs to be funnelled into Sofia and in personnel qualified in aiding foreign investors pass through the entire pre-construction phase. This, among other things, involves procuring the entire set of building permits and licences on investors' behalf.

Recently, Bartels has been in talks with a slew of investors planning to build shopping malls and gated residential developments in Bulgaria, the executive said. He declined to name the investors Bartels was courting until an agreement was signed.

To Schoppers, who has been with Bartels for 18 years, Bulgaria is both an adventure and a tough nut. He opted for working in Bulgaria because it was a largely unexplored destination. Besides, being a highly sociable person, the job gave him the opportunity to establish new contacts. Nonetheless, Schoppers concedes that new always equates to a challenge. Comparing Bulgaria with the Netherlands, he sees local business people as more cautious and inaccessible. He also sees regulatory procedures such as acquiring a building permit as more time-consuming.

"In Bulgaria, it takes months for the construction oversight authority to decide whether a draft project is eligible to run the entire procedure to approval and another few months to procure the building permit itself," Schoppers says. In the Netherlands, the time spent waiting is much shorter, he adds.

Despite delays, the executive believes Bartels will strike its first project with a foreign investor this summer and start implementation in the autumn. Discrepancies between the local and foreign way of doing business are natural, Schoppers says. However, he believes the only way to handle foreign expansion is by adjusting to local reality rather than attempting to change it.

Schoppers brought Bartels's philosophy home. The Dutch company has successfully notched up a long record of foreign operations. It runs 17 offices in the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Ireland, Germany, Poland and Ghana and is now planning to open an office in Istanbul as part of its drive to expand to the Asian market. Of a total 310 people on the payroll, more than 80 work abroad.

Among the company's landmark project is the expansion of The Centennial Hall in Wroclaw, Poland, the building featuring in the UNESCO Cultural and Natural Heritage Register.

Now in business for 35 years, Bartels offers the entire scope of consulting engineering services for developments in the industrial, education, health care, housing, sport, leisure and commercial developments.