Annual r eport 2002 Annual r eport 2002 - Boskalis

Basic principles of the corporate strategy
Basic principles of the corporate strategy
The key success factors for a leading international service company in the area of maritime
infrastructure are:
• enterprise and risk management;
• transparency in corporate governance;
• employee efficiency;
• professional expertise and skills;
• a large and versatile fleet;
• efficient organizational and communications structures.
Enterprise and risk management
Enterprise means dealing every day with uncertainties, opportunities and risks. International enterprise
is highly developed at Boskalis and is encouraged by the top of the company on the basis of freedom
and discipline. Extensive decentralization for marketing operations and work contracting is linked to
regular feedback, coordination and reporting. As an international dredging company, Boskalis has to
deal with risks on a day-to-day basis. There are three kinds of risks:
Economic and market risks. The Boskalis markets are heterogeneous and often develop in different
ways. Boskalis is well placed to respond to both positive and negative developments in individual market
segments because of its global spread of activities, its broad-based, versatile and internationally-based
fleet and its occupation of strong positions in the home markets. The dredging industry also focuses to
a major degree on the maintenance and development of infrastructure. This means that long-term
economic developments are more important than short-term economic fluctuations.
The dredging industry is a capital-intensive industry with high entry and exit barriers. Price competition
for large projects is often fierce. Cost leadership is a key success factor. It receives a great deal of
emphasis in terms of both investment strategy and as a critical component of operational management.
The PFI (Private Financing
Initiative) project in Pevensey
Bay involves the construction of
an eight-kilometer-long shingle
bank between Eastbourne and
Bexill in East Sussex.
The resulting improvement to
the bank will provide protection
against flooding for storms that
may occur once every 300 years.
The project includes maintenance
work on the coastal
defenses for 25 years. In the
U.K., the project has already
received 2 awards.
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Annual Report 2002