The LOGICART team (representing DB Schenker in Poland) qualified to the BGF World Final !!!

The LOGICART team consists of 5 people: Piotrek Bąbel (Sales Branch Manager), Mariusz Kozłowski (Project Development Manager), Darek Subda (Controlling Manager / Team leader), Rafał Tarasewicz (Project Manager) and Arek Wojtas (Key Account Manager).

The day of BGF Semi finals was really exciting. After the first round we were on the fifth position and we knew that it would be extremely difficult to win this game. Obviously we like such challenges! Then, it was only better: second place after 2 round and finally we were the first after next rounds. I think time pressure really helped us and forced us to focus only on the most important factors impacting our results, but it wasn’t easy as our competitors also did play really well.

After all, we are definitely satisfied and look forward to the Final.

Agnieszka Józwik, HR, Schenker Poland

SKF Austria goes BGF World Finals 2008!

Coming from Steyr, a small town in the middle of Austria, SKF rolling bearings as well as SKF Business Game Factory players conquer the world.The motivated finalists are team leader Erwin Uebleis (controlling), Simon Blasl (business development), Joerg Schlager (supply chain) and Klaus Zeppezauer (human resources) - in the picture from left to right. Veronika Pfeffer, participating in the first round, stepped out due to her pregnancy. Veronika, in this way we wish you all the best for your personal challenges ahead!

Over the last five years, SKF - a Swedish company and world leader in rolling bearings and relevant products - has sent over 30 teams from 17 nations to participate in the BGF World Tournament. "Out of those, three teams have made it to the semi-finals, and we are the first team to enter the World Finals", says team leader Erwin Uebleis without hiding his pride.

Being among the top six of over 320 playing teams of this year´s Global Tournament is certainly something special. "The first three will make it to the BGF awards ceremony in Cannes. However, we won´t play for the third place - we will go for victory", says business developer Simon Blasl, knowing his optimism was always reasonable so far.

Not everyone was so happy from the very beginning - besides BGF, there was a lot of "real" work to be done. However, what SKF does - we do properly, and with the success in the first round, the fire got started. "Now we see the Business Game Factory as an excellent way of learning in a challenging, competitive environment and working as a team close to the reality of company management - including the time pressure" says Six Sigma Black Belt Joerg Schlager.

"The game became more and more realistic. In the semi-final, personnel was increasingly important, as it is in reality. In the final round, we will probably have to think about proper training of our virtual employees - for example by Business Game Factory", says Klaus Zeppezauer, representing the HR part.

The Team of SKF Austria looks forward to the upcoming challenge of the World Finals - take the chance now or never, following the SKF vision "To equip the world with SKF knowledge".

Elisabeth Krennhuber, Personnel and Organizational Development, SKF Österreich AG

BGF World Semi-Finals!

In September 2008, the Semi-Finals of BGF Global Open Tournament were held. Representing 17 countries, 38 best teams from the entire tournament year were competing against each other. The time for decision-making was short, adding more spice to the tournament excitement.

We are proud to announce that 6 of the semi-finalist teams qualified and are on their way to the BGF World Final. It will take place this November. The best three teams will be invited to our prestigious BGF Awards Ceremony, held in Cannes on the French Riviera.

Please welcome the following teams to the BGF World Final:

• Nordea Bank Finland - Latvia branch: Team NORDTEL
• Schenker - Poland: Team LOGICART
• SKF - Austria: Team SKFonic
• Accenture - Spain: Team DTN
• Ericsson Business Unit Networks - Sweden: Team KEY
• Nokia – Hungary: Team CREATEAM

Congratulations to all the teams who were participating in the BGF Business Game Tournament!

And all the best to the Finalists! May the best team win!!

Taavi Thiel
CEO, Business Game Factory

SNPower Invest win the BGF Global Energy Tournament

Teams from the Energy sector competed against one another in one of the most challenging Global Business Energy Tournaments to date!

SNPower won the Tournament with Vattenfall taking second place and Norsk Hydro in third. Jan-Erik Felle of SNPower's team “yPhone” said, “SN Power Invest participated with a team bringing in representatives from different functional areas to mirror the way we would work with many of our daily corporate tasks. The competition gave individual team members a good insight into how a company functions as a whole, and proved to be a good way to develop the key business skills of market analysis, strategy formulation, pricing, production planning and financial analysis. The competition proved to be a very good way to mimic the market dynamics, where tough competitive strategies have a direct effect on the market and ultimately on the fate of a company and its profitability. The Business Game proved to be a good learning experience as well as a tool for letting colleagues from various areas of our company get to know and learn from each other in an informal and fun way. A very good experience on the whole”

SNPower are now entered into the BGF semi-finals, where they will compete against other international division winners, upon success, they will be off to the BGF Finals from which the top three teams will be invited to Cannes, French Riviera for the BGF Award Ceremony.

Members of the yPhone Team are Hilde Gillebo, Kathinka Rudlang, Inge Løvåsen, Markus Wilkens and Jan-Erik Felle.

BGF would like to congratulate SNPower on their achievements and we wish them well in the semi-finals, well done!

For further information regarding the Global Energy Business Tournament or team registration:
Contact - James Baker-Duly
james.bakerduly(#)bgfactory.com, +46 735 10 9397

Vattenfall Poland was ambitious from the very start!

SPoT Team representing Vattenfall Distribution Poland will compete in September's BGF World Semi-Finals. On the photo: Przemek Karaś, Olek Knesz, Karolina Mucha-Kuś (team leader), Asia Burcon, Andrzej Szyp and Przemek Waszczyk.

The game gave us an opportunity to feel like Top-Managers for a while! During the Tournament, we got an overall picture of making business, and it also showed us clearly how different parts of the company interact.

We learnt to develop trust in each others’ opinions, listen and communicate in an effective way.

What made the game the most exciting was the competition aspect. It was an extra source of motivation and it influenced our performance in a dynamic environment.

All in all, we experienced the BGF training as both exciting and rewarding. We also had a lot of fun!

Katarzyna Markowicz, HR, Vattenfall Distribution & Sales, Poland

John Holland ready to take on the world!

Our team from John Holland (Australia's leading contracting, engineering and services provider) came from a diverse set of backgrounds. This diversity in skills and management style added to colourful, but fruitful, discussions on our BGF strategies. We found the development of our sales and marketing strategies behind a consumer product challenging at first due to our contracting backgrounds, but it didn't take us long to develop our style.

With the true spirit of the ANZACs, after trailing for the first two rounds, we didn't give up, but decided to stand behind our strategy and our consistency finally paid dividends in rounds 3 and 4.

John Holland, although predominantly operating only in Australia, is now ready to take on the world in the BGF Semi-Finals!

John Holland team: Greg Taylor, Jeff Price, Glenn Palin, Paul Gallo and Robert Rabie.

In Sandvik Systems Development we know how to run a business!

We're doing IT! Team Sandvik SSD/SIT is a recently established Company with focus on growth and profitability within the business. Strange, isn't it?

Sandvik SSD/SIT is a fusion of skilled workers and managers from different companies and that is one of our key factors, says Jerker Lantz, the president of Sandvik SSD/SIT. Another one is our aggressiveness, stamina and agility. Quick decisions and risk management is our guiding star, he continues. Jerker is the Chairman of the Board and beside him he is accompanied by Anders Öhlund and Daniel Eriksson.

“Sandvik SSD/SIT” was the name we gave to our company in the BGF Business Tournament, where we were faced with a challenge of running a global company with thousands of employees.

In reality, we all work for Sandvik; Jerker is working as a release manager and project leader for Sandvik Systems Development. Sandvik Systems Development is one of two data companies within Sandvik AB with main focus on developing data services for the Sandvik business. Daniel Eriksson is working as license manager for Sandvik Information Technology. His role is taking care of all different kind of licenses and to coordinate all activities around licensing within Sandvik. Sandvik Information Technology has the responsibility for all data production within Sandvik. Anders Öhlund is responsible for data integration within Sandvik. He is also working for Sandvik Information Technology, where he runs a team with responsibility for all integration services within Sandvik AB.

IT is Business and Business is IT. Sandvik SSD/SIT are running IT and therefore, of course, we can run the business...

Nokia proceeds to BGF semifinals!

”The simulation produced a strong team building effect, which is not so common in traditional training events. The competition is definitely a positive aspect and drives people to think through all the new learning and strives them to understand the decisions they are making. I believe that the learning value can be easier applied this way in the future. Our team will be able to perform better in areas such as pricing of products, solutions and services and understanding product / brand value on demand creation.

The simulation and the competition were well organized and we are eagerly looking forward to the BGF Semifinals.”

Hannu Eronen
Director, Services and Software
Nokia