Social housing, public transport networks, the launch of an energy efficiency scheme… All the major infrastructure, services and products that make a difference to our daily lives started off as a project. But what are the main stages of a project, and how can the European Investment Advisory support you in each stage?
A standard project typically has the following five major stages: programming, identification, formulation, implementation, and evaluation and audit. Taken together, these stages represent the path a project takes from the beginning to its end.
Discover in the infographic below the objectives, deliverables and support you can get from the Hub in each project stage, whether you are a private or public project promoter.
Private
Public
Project Stages
A project typically has five major stages:
Programming
Do we foster our existing business or do we develop new fields?
Where do we want to be in 5 and 10 years from now?
Identification
Do I grow, do I develop, do we merge or acquire?
What strategy can we afford or finance?
What are the business areas and projects to explore?
Formulation
Is my feasibility study considering all options?
Do we fulfil all permitting conditions (i.e. EIA)?
Implementation
How can I get a fast value for money solution?
What is my earliest commencement date?
Is the CBA conservative enough to allow for some cost overruns and delays?
Do I need competitive offer or can I award directly to speed up implementation and commercialisation?
Evaluation & audit
Were planned benefits achieved?
Will they be sustained?
What lessons have been learned?
Has there been compliance with applicable laws and rules?
Are efficiency, economy and effectiveness criteria being met?
Formulation
Did I consider all factors impacting my project when using public finance?
What additional impact will occur in terms of timeline, procurement, approval procedures, permitting etc. when merging under «public» rules?
This activity is beyond the mandate of EIAH
Programming
Is there any acquis communitaire, Partnership agreement or ex ante conditionality to be fulfilled?
Do we have a National Strategy or regulative framework demanding actions to be compliant with EU Directives?
Identification
Is the Master Plan comprehensive enough?
Does it translate values into a scheme that describes how, why, when, and where to build, rebuild, or preserve the community?
Formulation
Is the CBA reliable, especially when considering tariff developments?
Could I receive financial structuring advice?
Could you assist me in the preparation of the tender documents?
Implementation
Is the tender Dossier creating a level and transparent platform for fair procurement?
Are all employers requirements, including training, defined to allow a sustainable operation after take-over?
Evaluation & audit
Were planned benefits achieved?
Will they be sustained?
What lessons have been learned?
Has there been compliance with applicable laws and rules?
Are efficiency, economy and effectiveness criteria being met?
Programming
The purpose of this initial stage is to identify the vision, strategy and objectives that a public authority or private promoter has over a specific timeframe, and thus to provide a framework within which projects can be identified and prepared.
The programming stage develops an initial idea and creates an outline of the business case and its implementation schedule.
What are the public promoter’s development priorities?
Policies and strategies define the vision that a public authority (national, regional or local government) has for the development of a sector.
The Climate Change Agreement in Paris, an EC Directive on Circular Economy, the vision of a government to introduce e-cars in 20 years from now… Policies and strategies cover a wide range of themes. But they all have something in common: they set a vision for the future under which projects or programmes are established to achieve the strategic goal.
On a national level, the programming stage is typically the result of a bilateral negotiation between the European Commission and the respective Member State to cater for sector investment needs during a seven-year programming period. The resulting operational programme (in the case of European structural and investment funds) allows for sector-specific developments and projects to align with the relevant EU Directives.
What are the private promoter's development priorities?
Business Development Strategy is a combination of ideas, initiatives and activities aimed towards making a business better. This includes increasing revenues, growth in terms of business expansion, increasing profitability, building strategic partnerships, and making strategic business decisions.
Business development deals with the establishment of long term value factors for an organization from the point of view of markets, customers and their interrelationships.
Business development strategies are used to formulate a company’s future vision and longer-term plan.
- Programme advice
- Preliminary investment (platform) assessment
- Capacity building (public sector only)
Identification
The purpose of this stage is to identify project ideas that are consistent with the development priorities and to assess their relevance and feasibility.
Public sector
Is your project concept relevant to the priority needs and compliant with policies?
Masterplan outlines an overall development concept that can include, among others, urban design, landscaping, infrastructure, service provision, circulation, present and future land use and built form.
A masterplan is embedded in the legal and regulatory framework of the respective country and complies with the relevant national and EU policies and strategies. It will identify measures and rank them against qualifiers, such as their efficiency in cost and effect.
During this stage the financial demand of the short-, mid- and long-term measures of a masterplan will be matched with known and available funds, and complementary financing sources will be explored.
Private sector
Does your project achieve unmet customer needs? Do you have target markets? What are the competitive advantages of your project?
Business plan outlines the goals of your business, the ways to reach them including the operational changes, the sales and marketing strategy and the financial background and projections. It also outlines the expected profit and loss and concludes if the goals are attainable.
Market opportunity analysis defines future opportunities and evaluates the project’s technological, financial and competitive willingness to make use of them. It includes the identification of unmet customer needs and target markets, and assesses the competitive advantages and resource capacity of the company in order to meet market demand. To create your market opportunity analysis, you will need to answer, among others, the following questions:
- Who are your potential customers?
- What are your potential customers looking for?
- When do they need the product or service?
- What distribution channel will work best?
- How do customers decide to buy the product or service?
- Are there any external factors affecting the customers’ buying decision?
- How is the relevant market developing?
- Strategic investment/business planning
- First reactions to project proposals
- Conceptual development
- Capacity building (public sector only)
Formulation
Is your project feasible and will it deliver sustainable benefits?
The feasibility study helps to decide on the optimal investment approach by answering the following question: is the project feasible in terms of economic and financial sustainability, environmental and regulatory compliance and acceptance by the public?
The feasibility study consists of a technological-technical analysis, a location analysis, an organisational analysis, and the analysis of economic and financial indicators. It is subject to environmental surveys and approvals. All this information is used to assess the feasibility and value of the investment project.
A feasibility study is typically composed of the following elements:
- Option analysis: is a multi-criteria analysis of alternatives (technical, financial, legal, etc.) to meet the defined objectives.
- Cost-benefit analysis: is a means of evaluating all potential costs and benefits/revenues that may be generated if the project is completed. The outcome of the analysis determines if the project is financially/economically feasible or another project should be pursued.
- Financial analysis must be included in the CBA to compute the project’s financial performance indicators. It is carried out in order to: assess the consolidated project profitability; verify the project financial sustainability and outline the cash flows which underpin the calculation of the socio-economic costs and benefits.
- Economic analysis must be carried out to appraise the project’s contribution to welfare.
- Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and climate change measures: Detailed study to determine the type and level of effects an existing facility is having, or a proposed project would have, on its natural environment. Its objectives include:
- help decide if the effects are acceptable or have to be reduced for continuation of the facility or proceeding with the proposed project
- design/implement appropriate monitoring, mitigation and management measures
- propose acceptable alternatives
- prepare an environmental impact report (EIR). The adequacy of an EIA is based on the extent to which the environmental impact can be identified, evaluated and mitigated
- Risk and vulnerability analysis: The purpose is to increase awareness and knowledge of threats, risks and vulnerabilities within a particular area for decision makers and those in charge of operations, as well as to create a basis for their planning and identification of risk mitigation measures.
Depending on the source of financing (debt, equity or grant), the feasibility study has to follow particular formats and requirements. A detailed understanding of these requirements can be obtained from the relevant financing institution.
Tender dossier is the set of documents that contains all the provisions and information that candidates need to submit a tender - the procedures to follow, the documents to provide, cases of non-compliance, award criteria and their weightings, etc.
Tendering is the process by which bidders are invited to offer specific services, provision of goods or construction works.
Financing agreement. Once the project is approved, the financing agreement will need to be signed between the corresponding financial institution, Ministry or Managing Authority and the implementing partner, including the necessary technical and administrative provisions for implementation.
Is your project feasible? Will the project benefits exceed its costs?
The feasibility study is an analysis of how successfully a project can be completed, accounting for factors that affect it such as economic, technological, legal and scheduling factors. If it shows that the project is feasible, then itis worth investing more time and resources into it.
The feasibility study consists of a market and legal environment analysis, a technological-technical analysis, a location analysis, an organisational analysis and the analysis of economic and financial indicators. This information is then used to assess the feasibility and value of the investment project.
A feasibility study is typically composed of the following elements:
- Option analysis: is a multi-criteria analysis of alternatives (technical, financial, legal, etc.) to meet the defined objectives.
- Cost-benefit analysis: is a means of evaluating all potential costs and revenues that may be generated if the project is completed. The outcome of the analysis determines if the project is financially feasible or another project should be pursued.
- Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and climate change measures: An EIA examines the anticipated environmental effects of a proposed project.
Further to the above, depending on the project needs the following issues could be addressed:
- transport/logistic challenges
- storage or just-in-time material management
- marketing strategies/costs
- customs and permitting hurdles/obligations, etc.
The format and content of the feasibility study is driven by the company’s objectives and business needs.
Procurement is the purchase of services, supplies or works.
Financing agreement. The process of acquiring capital necessary to conduct a business activity starts once the funding has been agreed with the financial entity.
For private sector projects supported by public entities, the private and public project paths intertwine (or run closely in parallel) as from the formulation stage, because:
- public money pushes the private sector to follow public procurement rules
- private sector needs to meet the objectives of National Authorities, EU Directives or international financial institutions to be eligible for financing
In these cases, private sector promoters have to follow the requirements of the public sector closely to comply with policies or eligibility criteria that they would normally not consider.
- Specific financial and economic analysis
- Feasibility studies
- Option analysis
- Cost-benefit analysis
- Environmental assessments
- Risk and vulnerability analysis, including climate change
- Procurement planning (in the form of feedback on existing technical issues identified in a review of existing documents, such as tender documentation, drafting terms of reference)
- Selection and supervision of external consultants retained for project preparation activities
- Financial structuring and advice
- Capacity building (public sector only)
Implementation
In this stage the project takes shape. It is during implementation that the project becomes visible to outsiders, to whom it may appear that the project has just begun.
Has the tendering been concluded successfully?
The implementation stage starts with the signature of the contract (commencement date) and ends with the “take-over” of the goods or works requested and the following exploitation/operation period (installation life cycle).
Services can be any kind of service (consultancy, design, project management, cleaning…).
Construction is the specific period, stipulated in a contract (beginning from the date stated in the notice to proceed), during which the contractor must complete construction, subject to the conditions of the contract.
Goods. Delivery of any good (from pencils to cars) with the acceptance of the Incoterms rules (a series of pre-defined commercial terms used in international commercial transactions or procurement processes) and the quality requested.
Were the services, goods or works purchased successfully?
This stage starts with the signature of the contract (commencement date) and ends with the “take-over” of the goods or works requested.
- Advice on project implementation issues
- Capacity building (public sector only)
Evaluation & audit
In this post-implementation stage, the project’s effectiveness, impact, compliance and sustainability are analysed.
Were planned benefits achieved? Will they be sustained? What lessons can be learned? Has there been compliance with applicable laws and rules? Are efficiency, economic and effectiveness criteria being met?
Evaluation and reporting at national level towards the objectives of the operational programme.
Were planned benefits achieved? Will they be sustained? What lessons can be learned?
Return on investment / Profitability analysis. Evaluation and reporting to the company’s shareholders.
The European Investment Advisory Hub does not provide further assistance at this stage, as the above services are beyond the Hub’s mandate.