Thom Barnhardt, Biznes Polska - OutsourcingPortal.pl

Highlights from ABSL’s Outsourcing reportPoland as a top European shoring destination6BPOs OutsourcingPolandand SSCs2011 saw Poland strengthening its positionas a leading global shoring destination. Itwas named by Everest as the most matureoffshoring location in Europe and one of theTop 5 worldwide. Also Hackett Group identifiedPoland as one of the most interestingoffshoring venues for international investorsand Kraków was ranked 11th globallyin the TOP 100 outsourcing destinations byTholons. Poland currently accounts for 40%of the total headcount in outsourcing centresin Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).Jacek Levernes, President of ABSL, commented“The business services sector in Polandcurrently provides employment to over85,000 people, up by 50% compared to 2009.We expect that a total of 100,000 people willbe employed in the services sector in Polandby year-end 2012. The country is attractingincreasingly more advanced services andprocesses. Today the country successfullycompetes for outsourcing projects with placessuch as China or India and is amongst thetop five global outsourcing destinations.”“Business Process Outsourcing andShared Service Centres account for most ofthe projects of the Polish Information andForeign Investment Agency (PAIiIZ). 30 outof 149 investors we currently work with inPoland represent the offshoring businesswhich is an equivalent of over 7700 potentialnew work places.” said Slawomir Majman,President of PAIZ.In respect of headcount, PAIZ estimatesthat 45% of the existing “outsourcing” centresin Poland are Business Process Outsourcing(BPO) centres and IT outsourcingcentres (ITO), followed by Shared ServiceCentres SSC (35%) and Research and Developmentcentres R&D (20%). Most typicalprocesses executed by Poland-based outsourcingcentres are finance and accounting,ImpelWroclaw-based Impel is making plans to expandin Russia, initially to offer cleaning servicesfor private commercial developmentsand public buildings, said Danuta CzajkaImpel’s group vice president. The firm establishedoperations in Kiev with joint-venturepartner Griffin Group, and revenues aregrowing in the double-digits quarterly, afteran initial period of stagnation. “Ukrainianauthorities are outsourcing health care services and other key sectors of the economy,such as energy”, said Wojciech RembikowskiImpel group vice president.Impel is the largest Polish providerof outsourcing services, ranging fromoffice cleaning to IT services, and hadDEALSGenpact Limited, a global leader in businessprocess and technology management,acquired Accounting Plaza, a provider offinance and accounting (F&A), human resources(HR) services and PeopleSoft ERPservices to Ahold, a major international retailer,and other clients in the retail, wholesale,banking and healthcare industries.The acquisition will significantly expandGenpact’s domain expertise in the retailindustry in addition to its service deliveryfootprint in Europe. Terms of the deal werenot disclosed.With the acquisition of Accounting Plaza,Genpact now has a strong services deliveryoperations in The Netherlands with Dutchlanguage capabilities as well as an expandedservices portfolio in Europe including humanresources business process management, e-invoicing and PeopleSoft ERP related services.Genpact will also bolster its F&A servicesofferings for the retail industry in areas suchas store and franchise accounting, inventoryaccounting, and trade promotions.IT as well as research.The predominant countries of origin arethose within the European Union (France,Germany, UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands)as well as the United States. The sector givesemployment to university graduates and studentswith fluent English, German, French,Italian and Spanish as well as other less popularforeign languages such as Danish, Swedish,Norwegian, and Dutch amongst other.Services are delivered in a total of 34 differentlanguages with a typical employee being29-30 years old with approximately 3 years ofprofessional experience. This is unlike only arevenues in the first quarter of 2012of 333 million zł, an increase over theprevious year of 15 percent. Operatingprofit was 8.2 million zł. Impel makesmost of its money from its cleaning division,and offers such services to hospitalsand other institutions, supportingmore than 120 firms. But the publicsector outsourcing remains a difficultsector. “The short-sighted policy of thestate is ruining the market. We estimatethat prices for services for the publicsector have declined in recent years byalmost 25%. It’s increasingly an art justto stay in the game, especially when laborcosts are systematically increasing”,said Rembikowski.■“This deal gives Genpact domain expertisein the retail industry, an industry whichis transforming globally. Along with financeand accounting, one of our core capabilities,we now gain tremendous traction inthe retail industry,” said Tiger Tyagarajan,president and CEO, Genpact. “The additionof operating centers in The Netherlandswill further expand and grow our businessin Europe, especially with large Europeanmultinational corporations. We’re lookingforward to partnering with Ahold Europeand applying our capabilities in smarterprocesses, analytics and technology to helpsupport their growth plans.”Accounting Plaza has approximately 600full-time employees working out of its centersin The Netherlands, Poland, and CzechRepublic. It was founded in 2000 as the F&Aand HR services provider for Ahold, thesixth largest retail company in the world.Within Europe, Genpact operates three deliverycenters in Romania as well as centersin Hungary, Poland, and Morocco, servingmore than 25 languages.■couple of years ago when SSC and BPO/ ITOcentres were recruiting mainly new graduates.Interestingly, employers are increasinglycompeting for a talent pool who arenot only experts in areas of specializationsuch as IT but also have a general knowledgeabout the sector the company is active in.The dominant three markets in respect ofheadcount in the services sector are Warsaw,Kraków and Wroclaw with SSC and BPO/ITO staff respectively of 20,000, 10,000 and10,000. In addition, Tri-City and Poznan arealso recently receiving a lot of interest fromBPO/ ITO and SSC investors. McKinsey &Company and Samsung invested in Poznanin 2011 while Bayer, OIE Support and MetsaGroup have all committed to the Tri-Citymarket, as well as the recently announcedIndian firm WNS. The seven biggest Polishagglomerations i.e. Warsaw, Kraków, Wroclaw,Lódz, Silesia, Tri-City and Poznan haveabout 80% of all service centres in Poland,driven by strong universities and higher-educationcentres, and a reasonably wide availabilityof office space, albeit differences existbetween particular markets.■Association of Business Services Leaders inPoland (ABSL) along with its strategic partnersJones Lang LaSalle and Hays and supportingmember Baker & McKenzie released a newreport in spring 2012 on the Business ServicesSector in Poland.