big moveTwo new comers to the top six; 'Beagle 2' from Interserve come in at 5th place up from 11th and 'AECOMplete Shambles' from AECOM come in at 6th up from 8th. Losing out are 'Arup Infrastructure London Group II' down from 3rd to 8th and 'Construction Brilliant Innovation ' of CB&I down from 6th to 10th. The other four staying in the top six places have shuffled their places 'Singularity' of Atkins India remains 1st, 'Strike while the iron is Mott' from Mott Mac is up to 2nd from 5th 'Ubiquitous' of Atkins India is up to 3rd from 4th and 'Amazing' of Atkins Asia Pacific is down to 4th from 2nd. With the Atkins India and Atkins Asia Pacific having three in the top six the Atkins family is well represented and maintain their recent good record of getting teams to the final.

From memory Interserve and AECOM haven't had a team in the final in recent years so you can see the reason for their motivation. Arup who are currently the best performing MERIT sponsor with 3 Championships and three Sponsors Awards have their highest team at 8th so they still seem intent on defending their record. AURECON who have had three teams into the final have their highest placed team at 16 so we may well see an AURECON finalist.

The game is still on, there are still big movements see 'Savants' of Atkins India, 'AECOM and get some', 'The Brains to Pick' from WSP and 'Chicken DALfrezi from Donaldson Associates as examples. There are some 16 teams with movements of 20 or more places. A couple more surges of that scale and the top order will be challenged.

The ratio of turnover to company capital is an important indicator at a level of 9 times the company capital the questions start to be raised as to whether your company have enough assets to support its work load. But it also indicates that the company capital is working hard. If the ratio is much lower say 5 it indicates that the company capital is not working hard and your Finance Director need to consider how to respond. Grow the company's turnover, invest the capital outside the company or reduce the capital. It is not only the construction side of estimating and competing projects that determine a successful company. The financial side is equally important.

Four more rounds plenty of time.


Click here to see the League table For Period 8