COWI opens new office in Sweden 

With the establishment of a new company in southern Sweden, COWI is now investing more heavily in a market that has been growing steadily over the past few years. Already one employee is in place and more will join the office during the spring. New employees of COWI AB will focus on mapping and environmental due diligence, including soil and groundwater contamination.

"Although we have already handled a number of tasks in Sweden, if we want to develop our activities and gain an even larger market share we need to be based there. We have to get to know our customers, speak the language and find out how things are done in Sweden," says Søren Viegand, Head of Department in COWI.

A growing market

There are several contributing factors involved in our decision to move into the Swedish marketplace. In the mapping sector, we recently won a framework agreement with the Lantmäteriverket (the equivalent of the Danish National Survey and Cadastre) and its commercial division, Metria.

“Metria - formerly one of our competitors - now contracts out all of its work for central and local government authorities, so this framework agreement has enabled us to get a foot in the door of the Swedish market," says Henrik Malmberg, Market Manager of Geo-informatics in COWI AB.

“The favourable conditions in the environmental sector can be attributed to the fact that public funds have increased and legislation has recently been tightened, including a law that makes landowners accountable for polluting the groundwater,” says Søren Viegand.

Competent support

The proximity of the new office to COWI’s headquarters in Lyngby means that employees of COWI AB can always seek assistance there. "Our soil, groundwater and mapping specialists at Lyngby will be involved in many of the projects, and we will also use our partners in Sweden," says Søren Viegand.

In the mapping sector we intend to strengthen cooperation with COWI's subsidiaries.

"We are aiming to widen the range in our production by exploiting the synergy with COWI’s cartographers in India and our business partner in China," adds Henrik Malmberg.

Long-term plans

Initially the new office will focus on mapping projects in Sweden and Norway. If the market develops as expected the plan is to invest even more in the country and expand further over the next few years.

"The larger we are, the stronger we can become. Branding will be easier if we move from the mapping and environmental niches to include a wider range of COWI’s services, such as bridges, railway and buildings," concludes Henrik Malmberg.

By: Line Steenberg, jaje@cowi.com   
Published: 12.01.2006