Botnia participated in the quality competition for large companies and business units held by Excellence Finland (Suomen Laatukeskus). Botnia was honoured with the "EFQM Recognised for Excellence" recognition for its good operations and results. Botnia has been systematically developing its operations leaning on quality management with long-span perspective. Participation in quality competition is a natural continuation of the development work. Using targets to manage strategy implementation was found one of Botnia's strengths. At Botnia the strategy is converted into targets by annual planning. Targets and gauges are defined even in personal level and different organizational levels participate in devising plans. Needs and expectations of Botnia's interest groups steer operations planning. The evaluation of participating organizations is based on EFQM model (European Foundation for Quality Management) widely used in Europe. The evaluation tool covers all business operations and both qualitative and quantitative results of them. Recognised for Excellence award is athe companies which obtain more than 400 points. The aim of the competition is to bring out the quality of operations of participating organisations and the aspects that require improvements. Evaluation gives genuine and objective information on positive facts about the organisation as well as the issues to be further developed. In the quality competition evaluation is made by a trained group of experts who are well versed in a participant's field of operations.