Destia has excellent expertise, efficient processes and a well-functioning organisation. Developing these further will support the continued evolution of Destia’s strong culture of getting things done. They will help us make Destia number one in the infrastructure sector, and to become even better at listening to our customers.

The first three-year period of Destia’s strategy, which extends until 2022, was completed in 2016 in a positive atmosphere. In the first quarter of the second operating period, revenue was slightly lower than in the previous year. The first quarter is traditionally characterised by a negative result due to the seasonality of the construction business. The year-on-year improvement in the result was attributable to more successful project management as well as the mild winter conditions across most of Finland. In line with our previously published outlook, we expect Destia’s revenue and operating profit to grow slightly from the previous year.

In order to achieve our strategic objectives, during the year we continued to invest strongly in personnel development. Particularly we focused on expertise, customer work and occupational safety. I am happy that our accident frequency is at a record low: 7.6 occupational accidents per one million working hours. The improvement of occupational safety has also been evident in good feedback that we have received from customers and industrial safety authorities.