Lack of strategic planning and lack of standardised risk management are important challenges for infrastructure companies.
These are conclusions that Emil Mårtensson and Philip Rumman draw in their thesis “Asset management in the public sector”.
They conducted a case study over five months at Sweden’s largest supplier of water services, Stockholm Vatten och Avfall AB (SVOA). A total of fourteen interviews were compared against internal company documents.
The results indicate that the biggest challenges a public infrastructure company must overcome are:
- Lack of strategic and long-term planning.
- Unclear distribution of asset liability.
- Lack of management commitment for asset management systems.
- Lack of standardised risk management.
- Lack of information exchange.
On a practical level, the thesis argues that the management of public infrastructure companies needs asset management principles. They should also introduce a clear division of asset responsibility, introduce standardized risk management models and policies, and contribute to cross-functional exchange of experience.
In August, the thesis work was approved. You can read it here.