Skanska Project Support, Winner of September's BTS Construction Tournament

After finishing first in this autumn’s BTS Construction Tournament, Skanska Project Support Sweden are now through to the semifinals for next year. The semifinal is run in September 2008 where the Skanska team will face the division winners from all around the world to compete for a place in the finals. The top 3 teams in the final will be invited to BTS Awards in Cannes, at the French Riviera for the prize ceremony.

Team leader for Skanska Project Support, Lars Karlson, CFO, had the following to say about their experience of the tournament. "We greatly enjoyed participating in this competition. It was challenging to analyze matters and issues none of us normally do in our daily work. It was also exiting to grasp an overall view, to make decisions based on our findings, and see how the results came out. A great benefit with this exercise is to gather people from different professions and to combine their knowledge and experience. For us it worked out well. We had fun and learned a lot which will be useful both in present and future assignments. We definitely recommend the BTS Business Tournament to other units in Skanska"

About the Construction Tournament in Business Management

The Construction tournament has been running for many years now with great success. The task is to gather a team of 3-5 participants, the team will then have the opportunity to run a simulated multinational company in competition with other teams from the construction industry for market shares, profits and revenue. Besides the fun and motivational competition, the purpose of the tournament is for individuals to further develop skills in business strategies, management board dynamics, financial analysis and team work.

Patrik Thorman,
BTS Tournaments
mobile +46 70 783 73 89
phone +46 (0)8 20 39 35
patrik.thorman(#)bts.com

BTS Business Tournament - New semifinalists from the January tournament

(On the picture from left to right Markus Alitalo, Akira Kameda, Tomi Kuparinen, Akira Nakano and Takeshi Oyama from Nokia Japan)

- Atlas Copco Spain, Team OLÉ
- Skanska Foundation Projects Sweden, Team Grund AB
- Pöyry Forest Industry Consulting Oy Finland, Team RockRock
- Fortum Power and Heat Oy Finland, Team Chaleur
- OJSC VimpelCom Russia, Team Advanced
- Nokia Corp Japan, Team 5samurai

BTS Business Tournament is the biggest web based business tournament in the world. The tournament structure includes preliminary heats, semifinals and the BTS World Final. The three best teams of the year will be invited to the BTS Awards, organized in Cannes, on the French Riviera.

BTS Business Tournament builds strategic excellence, management board dynamics, ability for financial analysis and fact based decision making and precise follow up.

(On the picture from left to right Carlos Moreno, Eva Hernández, Emilio Diez, Marina Romero and Roberto Pascual from Atlas Copco Spain)

The participants will be acting as the management board of a global company with the task of running the business successfully for 5 fiscal years. The winning criterion is total company shareholder value.

96% of all participants would like to participate again and recommend participation to other colleagues.

(On the picture from left to right Matti Savolainen, Oskari Lehto, Petteri Kuusela, Sakari Imeläinen and Fred Nykänen from Fortum Power and Heat Oy)

(On the picture from left to right Kimo Mikkonen, Petri Jokinen, Tuomas Salo, Juha-Erkki Nieminen from Pöyry.

Suvi Anttila, CEO and President of Pöyry Forest Industry Consulting Ltd. said: "We found the BTS Business Tournament very enjoyable and useful. It is great for team building and improves internal networking while at the same time challenging strategic thinking and analytical skills. We feel that the tournament nicely combines a big picture approach with sufficient room to maneuver and implement oneʹs strategies and tactics. The program is also very well organized and due to the conceptʹs flexibility, teams with tight schedules can also find the time to participate."

On the picture Mats Tidlund and Anneth Aglo from Skanska Foundation Projects. Missing are Joakim Berg, Frida Lindmark and Christelle Södergren. Mats Tidlund said: "The participation in the BTS Business Tournament has been an encouraging and enjoyable experience for everyone in our team. On a fundamental level, it has increased our ability to see the overall picture of business and how different business functions and the interrelations of these influence the performance of a company in a dynamic environment. The most important benefits for us were the development of our analytical and strategic skills and the improvement of the group decision-making process by taking advantage of the different knowledge and experience in the group. The competition atmosphere gave an exciting touch to the training and we will gladly recommend the BTS Business Tournament to other business units in Skanska."

Taavi Thiel
BTS Tournaments

taavi.thiel [#] bts.com