A first in 5 years: India beats China in project execution, says study

Money wasted on projects lowest in India; European projects most wasteful

Project Management Institute's (PMI) latest research shows that for the first time in five years, more projects in India are meeting original goals and business intent while being completed within budgets, and that fewer projects are deemed failures.

The findings unveiled today in PMI's 2017 Pulse of the Profession: Success Rates Rise, Transforming the High Cost of Low Performance, demonstrate that last year organisations across the globe reduced the average amount of money they wasted on projects and programmes by 20 per cent over the previous year.

The study found that, globally, organisations wasted an average of $97 million for every $1 billion invested in projects and programmes in 2016, compared to $122 million per $1 billion in the year prior.

According to the latest report by PMI, India reported the lowest average monetary waste on projects ($73 million per $1 billion), followed by China and West Asia ($82 million per $1billion).

Europe, on the other hand, reported the highest average waste on project spending at $131 million per $1billion.

Commenting on the latest development, Raj Kalady, Managing Director, PMI India, said, "As organisations face increasingly complex challenges from forces such as innovation, disruption, uncertainties, and the demands of a global business environment, the inextricable link between strategy and implementation must be addressed. What's also critical is an understanding of how change occurs: Operations run the business; but projects change the business. A formal approach to project and programme management can be the link that ensures that an organisation has the capabilities for change and strategy execution that it needs."