The engineering services industry: the state of affairs, problems, and prospects

Abstract

The article examines the current state of affairs in the Russian services industry and presents the properties of services that distinguish them from tangible assets. It is noteworthy that over the past 30 years, the share of services, provided to the population, has almost doubled. The authors have clustered services into groups and singled out the services provided to the business community. The authors have identified the main features and functions of engineering services that include complex, construction, operational, international, and computer ones. The object of engineering services is the intellectual process of solving creative (engineering) tasks, related to the design and arrangement of production processes, rather than products, design or production. Despite the fact that the share of domestic companies in the Russian engineering and construction markets is currently 67 %, this indicator is projected to decrease in the future. Among the main problems, hindering the development of the engineering services market in Russia, are: 1) the weak institutionalization of engineering services;
2) the insufficient number of highly qualified personnel; 3) underdevelopment of integrated engineering services; 4) insufficient attention to cost engineering; 5) insufficient measures of state support for the engineering industry. To solve the above problems, the authors have proposed measures to stimulate the development of the engineering services market. The Krasnoyarsk Metro project serves as an example of effective engineering, as a result of which budget savings amounted to about 30 %.