After 8 intensive and competitive Preliminary Rounds, an international line up prepared to do battle in the Enginuity 2024 Final, with teams from around the globe, and only 170 points separating the teams going into the 6-round Final. Past Champions Jacobs and WSP were represented, with teams from Arcadis Australia Pacific, AtkinsRealis India, Hatch, Infraco Consulting and Stantec all hoping to become first-time winners.

During the early years (periods 5 to 12) the teams pitted their management skills in competition against computer-simulated rivals, but in the final, known as the later years, they were in direct competition for work against each other, with just one additional simulated rival. Only the team able to cope the best under the increased pressure, and with the most effective and robust strategy for competing in this challenging global environment, would eventually emerge as the 2024, and 15th Enginuity Champions. Who would it be ?

And so to the action in the first round of the Final, and period 13 saw the immediate impact of the increased competition, as growth rates and procurement margins were significantly down across the board. However, encouragingly every team was able to secure some new work apart from the leaders going into the Final, "Constructive Chaos" (Arcadis Australia Pacific, Australia), who slipped back to 9th after losing out on a key 19m Water and Sewage contract to one of their rivals, despite being lower on price, but the rival had a better client relationship with the client, London Water Services, which made the difference as the bids were close.

The early leaders in the Final are the "Fanatics" (AtkinsRealis, India), who grew by 7%, the best in the round, to move up one place to top spot with 2,514 pts, and they have opened up a 111 point gap to their nearest rivals, "Whatever it takes" (Stantec, Italy), who climbed two places to 2nd, and just ahead of another Stantec team, "Stan Movers" (Stantec, United States) who remain unchanged in 3rd. The best positional gain in the round came from "Powerhouse" (Jacobs, UK/Ireland) who surged 5 places up the table despite a modest 3% growth. Although the table looks well stretched out, it is still early days, and there will be lots more twists and turns in the 5 remaining rounds before we know the identity of the 2024 Champions.