After conducting works on site of the Forum des Halles in 1976, he was commissioned by his father to create a new subsidiary Maison Bouygues as a catalogue real estate business with his brother Nicolas.

In the 1990s, Martin, supported by a close circle of men of the late Francis Bouygues, developed the group's activities around three sectors: construction — especially at the international level, telecommunications (Bouygues Telecom in 1994) and media (TF1, LCI in 1994), but he was mainly credited as a worthy successor to the family business for his resistance to Vincent Bolloré's takeover attempt in 1997.

[citation needed] In the 2000s, he reinforced the group's investments in these strategic sectors through subsidiaries Bouygues Telecom and Colas and made a number of key management decisions, such as rejecting the initial bidding conditions for awarding a UMTS licence in France in 2001, as well as establishing a cooperation agreement with Alstom in 2006.

This foundation helps high school students to pursue college education by offering them a scholarship.

In 2006, Martin Bouygues also initiated the support of his group for the United Nations Global Compact.