International competition on the Norwegian infrastructure market

The Norwegian infrastructure market experiences a development of larger projects with bigger budgets than ever before. This paper provides an overview of the current situation in the Norwegian rail and road infrastructure market, in order to grant contractor and client input on how value can be increased through efficient procurement and contract models in the future projects. The papers addresses the following research questions: What are the biggest opportunities and challenges of operating on the Norwegian infrastructure market for the clients and contractors? How can we ensure a healthy competition on the Norwegian infrastructure market? An initial literature study was followed by fourteen semi-structured open-ended interviews with key persons involved in one rail and three road projects, respectively. These case specific interviews were supported by six semi-structured interviews with experienced practitioners. Our findings present several challenges and possibilities of being on the Norwegian market. The identified factors, such as cultural differences and political stability makes the market challenging and preferred at the same time. We also found that clients can increase the international competition by offering contracts that are written in English, contracts of a certain size and by letting the contractors handle the design phase themselves. The public clients find themselves in a position where they feel an obligation to protect the established contractors, but at the same time attract new ones. This study is limited to projects where the contract is signed after 2012, and with a net value above 40 million euros. Due to an ongoing change in the market, where new contractors win several large-scale projects, it becomes important to identify the opportunities and challenges that occur when the competition in the market increases. The paper describe how clients can facilitate for a healthy competition and also successful projects in the near future. Some of the opportunities and challenges may also exist in other infrastructure markets, which may make the results usable for not only the Norwegian public clients, but also construction clients in other parts of the world. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.