Military Off the Shelf Procurements: A Norwegian Case Study

Abstract

Buying off the shelf procurements (OTS) has become an important part of the national acquisition strategy in several countries, and this paper seeks to bring empirical evidence on OTS as the preferred acquisition strategy by use of data from the 2015–2022 investment portfolio of the Norwegian Armed Forces. We develop definitions for three categories of procurement – OTS, modified OTS and development projects – as well as a method to classify projects into these categories. Our first finding is that the characteristics of OTS projects correspond to modified OTS and development projects. Our second finding indicates that OTS projects perform better when it comes to the completion of projects according to the initial schedule, compared to development projects.