Project owners are continually striving for a balance between power, responsibility and control. They have the power that comes from control over the budget, yet are ultimately responsible to their corporate Boards and Chief Executive Officers. They bear the responsibility for huge projects worth billions of dollars, along with the associated commercial and reputational costs of failure. Yet, project owners have to cede much of the project execution risk and control to industry experienced engineers and contractors.

Managing these dynamics requires maturity. Maturity in planning and financial forecasting; maturity in hiring and developing the right talent; maturity in ongoing risk and project management; maturity in contingency management to cope with the inevitable setbacks that accompany major construction projects; and maturity to build positive and effective working relationships with contractors that bring out the best in all parties.

In the ninth edition of KPMG’s Global Construction Survey we focus on the challenges facing owners as they seek to climb the maturity curve and feature the views of over 100 senior executives from both private and public organizations whose annual capital expenditure ranges from a few million US dollars to well over five billion US dollars.

The results, augmented with commentary from KPMG’s Major Projects Advisory specialists and external industry experts, should enable project owners globally to chart their own levels of project delivery maturity.