Czech Focus 2/2005 - AFI

11CZECH INVESTmentNEWSCzech Republic:future leaderin global offshoringCEO Briefing, Corporate Priorities for 2005, a report by the EconomistIntelligence Unit (EIU) released in early 2005 found that global offshoringof IT services, manufacturing and other business functions will continue togrow over the next three years. The report ranked Czech Republic thirdbehind India and China, respectively, as future leaders in global offshoring.Singapore ranked fourth, and Poland rounded out the top five. The report,in which 500 senior executives were surveyed, pointed to the Czech Republic’sattractiveness as both a near-sourcing and offshoring destinationdue to its attractive regulatory environment, cultural ties and proximity toother emerging and established markets in Europe.Offshoring Environment RankingsScoreRankIndia 7.76 1China 7.34 2Czech Republic 7.26 3Singapore 7.25 4Poland 7.24 5Canada 7.23 6Hong Kong 7.19 7Hungary 7.17 8Philippines 7.17 9Thailand 7.16 10Malaysia 7.13 11Slovakia 7.12 12Bulgaria 7.09 13Romania 7.08 14Source: EIUPrague is the top “buy” European marketfor office and industrial sectorsReal estate investors throughout Europe are optimistic about the industry’spotential to generate healthy returns over the coming year, according to thehighly-regarded real estate investment report, Emerging Trends in Real Estate®Europe 2005, published by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute(ULI).Strong “buy” markets include Helsinki, Prague, Warsaw and Budapest; whileAthens and Dublin are listed as strong “sell” markets. Prague ranked as the top“buy” market for both office and industrial property, and it was second for theretail sector’s best buy.Glen Lonie, Partner and Head of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Real Estate IndustryTeam for the Czech Republic and Central and Eastern Europe, said: “Prague hasmade huge progress as a property investment location. In five years, from havingvirtually no investment transactions it has hit the top of investors buy lists. Thisranking and similarly high rankings for Budapest and Warsaw show a high degreeof investor confidence in the future of Central Europe.”Accenture expands in the Czech RepublicAccenture, a global management consulting, technology services andoutsourcing company, held an opening ceremony for their new facilityin its shared services centre in Prague-Chodov. Accenture, whicharrived in the Czech Republic fourteen years ago, is growing morequickly here than expected – employing more than 1,300 people andcontinues to expand. The reason for continued expansion is a rising demandfor services in outsourcing of business and IT processes, the fieldsin which Accenture operates.The new facility is part of Accenture’sBPO delivery centre in theCzech Republic and will join thecompany’s Global Delivery CentreNetwork of 40 delivery centresaround the world to provide a fullrange of consulting, technologyand outsourcing services to clientsacross more than 30 industries.The original shared services centrethat was created by Accenture in2001 and based in Nove Butovice isone of two business support servicescompanies for which the Czech Governmentapproved tax incentives in2001. “In addition to the high qualityinfrastructure and supply of qualifiedlabour, support from the state is becominga more and more importantfactor to attract such advanced investments,” says Radomil Novak,CEO of CzechInvest.The new centre will provide the same services including finance &accounting, procurement and customer support. In addition, the newChodov site will be the primary multi-lingual, multi-client European servicecentre for Accenture HR Services, the Accenture business unit thatprovides HR administration services to large, multinational organizations.