We expect a strong increase in the Swedish spending power in the years to come. Of the around BSEK 400 increase the lion’s share, 80 per cent, will end up in the ten largest regions and nearly BSEK 160 thereof in the Stockholm region.

But, will all investments be profitable? Probably not; looking back at the first 10 years of this century maybe as much as 50 per cent of investments in shopping centres, hyper markets and big box retail has been less effective than expected and hasn’t always had the optimal location and size.

Why then do several projects fail to meet expectations? Good intentions and professional judgement apparently doesn’t suffice. How will we avoid future mistakes? Well, being right all the time is unfortunately not possible, especially given the more complex nature of projects.

Globalisation and ever more demanding and shifting consumers with greater power also put pressure on investors to focus on market intelligence and more effective decision support as well as new ways of evaluating their investment.

In my opinion, many investment decisions today are not thoroughly analysed and dealt with in a professional way – surprisingly enough. There are well developed models for risk, turnover and market forecasting that ought to be applied to all large investments together with increased knowledge of consumer behaviour and future trends. It’s expensive to correct mistakes and all in all the money for analyses is small potatoes when ensuring large investments.