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Poland a European leader in outsourcing

( 03 / November / 2008 )

According to a survey on BPO directed investment inflow tendencies prepared by Outsource Sri Lanka, Poland clearly stands out in the CEE region. Cracow ranked the 5th most attractive destination.

The report 50 outsourcing cities ranks Poland 1st in Europe and 5th in the world in terms of outsourcing investment attractiveness. The following criteria served as a base for the ranking: the quality and availability of human resources, education, costs of running a business, business-related risks, investment climate, infrastructure and the quality of life.

Two Polish cities, Cracow and Warsaw, both ranked high. Cracow came 5th (as opposed to 16th in 2007) and Warsaw 28th in the survey. Interestingly enough, Cracow outran all cities from the CEE region included in the ranking. For comparison, Prague ranked 14th, Budapest 25th, Bratislava 35th, Bucharest 38th, Sofia 40th and Tallinn 46th.

Poland owes it leader position in the field to over 10 thousand specialist employed in outsourcing. The group comprised mainly of accountants, economists, IT specialists, personnel managers and logistics specialists. In fact, investors do appreciate the quality of Polish human resources, emphasize the country’s attractive location in the centre of Europe as well as the availability of scientific aid from the Polish academic centres. Poland is the only country with two cities classified among the first 30 BPO investment locations.

Cracow’s exceptional performance is to a large extent derived from the city’s excellent reputation of a big academic centre and existing scientific support for investors. Not only is Cracow the seat of the oldest Polish university gathering over 180 thousand students but the whole agglomeration and the region’s special economic zone are strongly oriented towards service sector development.

It is worth emphasising that there are many other cities liable to attract BPO investments in the country e.g. Poznań, Katowice, Gdańsk or Łódź. Such investments create jobs for highly-qualified employees, which in return generate high value added for the Polish economy.

These initiatives rank high among the projects managed by PAIiIZ. The India ZenSar’s EUR 1.8 million investment in Gdańsk (350 employees) or the German MAN’s project worth EUR 560 thousand in Poznań (360 to be employed) are just a couple of examples. In the first half of 2008, out of total 32 finalized projects, 9 accounted as a BPO. As of end of September 2008, another 12 were open.

PAIiIZ

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