Chief Executive's Statement
Our strategy

Group strategy

We will achieve our vision through a strategy of multi-local, multi-skill excellence.

The key to much of our activity is the national and local nature of the relationships we build with our clients. The vast majority of our clients continue to come to Atkins at a local level because we have demonstrated deep technical performance. Our decentralised organisation, empowering local management, also leverages resources from across the Group. Our strategy involves focusing our efforts where we are able to develop these deep local relationships with our clients. We call this part of our strategy multi-local.

The implications of a multi-local strategy are:

• we will have several home markets, where the business is a market leader and is material to us
• we will only offer services where we have a high degree of technical competence in each of these markets
• we will be seen as deeply local by customers
• home businesses will be autonomous, but we will leverage capability from one region to another – collaborating and sharing knowledge across the Group
• we will not be global, offering identical commoditised services.

In addition to developing local skills, our local management teams are able to draw upon the Group’s wide range of skills and resources. One of Atkins’ key differentiators is the extensive range of skills that we have in the organisation. Our ability to mobilise multidisciplinary teams and deep expertise from around the Group for local projects is a demonstrated capability that we have continued to successfully develop. Our clients recognise that, by harnessing this breadth of skills, we can answer their questions better. This part of our strategy we call multi-skill.

The implications of a multi-skill strategy are:

• our competitive advantage will come from our breadth and depth of skills
• our breadth will allow us to address the world’s most complex projects, small or large, and give us flexibility to react to new market opportunities
• we will continue to invest in ensuring collaboration between skill groups and business units
• we will not be satisfied with skills that are less than world-class just for the sake of breadth.

None of this strategy works unless we constantly strive for excellence. Economies rely upon the capital projects on which we work, and customer trust in our delivery is paramount. This trust depends on us maintaining world-class skills, and constantly pushing the boundaries of what is technically achievable.

Our scope is clear. We will continue to evolve world-class skills in infrastructure-related disciplines. We will focus these skills in selected home geographies where our full capability can be brought to bear.

Our advantage is clear. Our breadth and depth of skills give us the ability to deliver simple solutions to complex questions. The reputation we build will attract employees and customers worldwide.