Strategy for RPS Norway A/S

The launch of a national parent company RPS Norway A/S was presented to Norwegian staff by RPS Norway Chairman Rolf Olsen, Metier Managing Director Halvard Kilde, OEC Managing Director Knut Hegge and RPS Group CEO Alan Hearne at a three-year strategy event in Oslo attended by 140 staff drawn from the 253 located at RPS’ offices in Oslo, Stavanger, Ålesund, Trondheim and Kristiansand. The event, hosted at the Radisson Blu Scandinavia Hotel in the centre of Oslo, was accompanied by tapas and a drinks reception.

The event focused on where RPS Group is currently and the challenges and opportunities presented by global trends and unfolding events as they relate to RPS’ business in Norway in particular, which contributes around 10% of the Group’s global revenue. The combination of OEC and Metier’s complementary project management skills will underpin an unrivalled reputation in this field for RPS in Norway and overseas. It will also strengthen an existing major focus of growth elsewhere within RPS Group.

Rolf Olsen, Halvard Kilde, and Knut Hegge set out the three-year strategic plan for the delivery of RPS Norway A/S as an integrated business. The strategy recognises the different and established professional practices of the companies and allows reasonable time to build one integrated organisation. The message was that a diversity of professional skills and experience directed towards shared goals will drive the common enterprise forward. Play was made on the Norwegian palindrome TILLIT meaning ‘trust’ – “which goes both ways”.

“The public sector investments in developing good transportation solutions, infrastructure and healthcare call for end-to-end services in project management and RPS Norway will be uniquely placed as a potential total services provider to many of the mega-projects” Rolf Olsen commented.

“Being the only full service and solution provider within project management in Norway gives us a unique position in a market place with a large and growing project portfolio” said Halvard Kilde.

“Bringing Metier and OEC together as part of RPS provides the opportunity for us to create the strongest and most complete project management team in Norway” explained Knut Hegge "and the means to secure the best projects and guarantee to our clients that they are well executed!"

RPS CEO Alan Hearne also delivered his latest presentation of RPS Group as an international consultancy of global standing for the benefit of Norwegian colleagues. Alan Hearne said “I recognise that OEC and Metier come from different places, with different cultures and different ways of working. It is all about people and building trust, bringing out the best of this organisation from design to delivery ensuring that the future continues to be exciting and rewarding”.

The creation of RPS Norway A/S is an important step in bringing the OEC and Metier businesses towards a common RPS identity in Norway. It also draws them both into the RPS Europe business segment and closer to the RPS brand name internationally. The Group’s Norwegian subsidiary companies will formally change their names to RPS in 2018.

Norway’s Government has announced plans to invest over 500bn NOK in transport infrastructure over the next decade, and invests around 20bn NOK in the country’s health sector each year, besides significant investment in the energy industry and development in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), all areas that continue to benefit greatly from strong project management leadership. Recent major projects on which RPS Norway has been engaged as project manager include the ongoing project management of two key City of Oslo Water Treatment projects to extend the facilities and to deliver clean water basins, and the early phase development of the new Norwegian National Police Emergency Response Centre.

RPS operates three multidisciplinary geographic business segments: Australia and Asia-Pacific (AAP) with over 1,000 staff working in offices across Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and China; Europe which employs over 3,500 staff across the UK and ROI, Norway, the Netherlands, and Russia; and North America that has more than 500 staff across the United States and in Canada.