Watch this latest interview with Euronews English and ABSL's Managing Director Joe Appleton on the Czech Republic economy response to the pandemic. How did companies manage this period and what new opportunities did this situation bring to them? Learn this and more in this interview with Joe and Iveta Chvalova, SAP.

The 2-min Interview is here.

The Association of Business Service Leaders (ABSL) elected Ciprian Dan, Location Head – Timișoara at Wipro Technologies, as President. Also, within the Board of Directors of the association entered two new members – Cristina Nicoleta Apetrei, Chief of Staff CEO Office at Societe Generale European Business Services and for Retail Banking and Financial Services India&Romania and Adrian Baron, the EMEA ITSM Lead at Stefanini.Ciprian Dan has been working in the business services industry for 15 years. He currently leads the Wipro Technologies office in Timișoara, with a team of 350 employees. Ciprian is in his second term of the ABSL board (2017 – 2019 and 2019 – 2021).
Cristina Nicoleta Apetrei is the Chief of Staff CEO Office for SG EBS and for Retail Banking and Financial Services India and Romania and has an experience of about 13 years in the business services industry, in different fields such as HR, IT, financial, banking, but also retail banking.
Adrian Baron, the EMEA ITSM Lead at Stefanini has been working in the industry for 6 years.
The ABSL Board of Directors also includes:

• Cristian Cilibiu – Country Manager of UniCredit Services S.C.p.A.
• Ecaterina Ion – General Manager & HR Leader in Hungary and Romania at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Operations Center
• Bogdan Pelinescu – Managing Director, Luxoft Central and Western Europe
• Francesca Postolache – Audit Partner at PwC Romania

According to the statute, elections are held every two years in the General Assembly.
During this term, the main operational directions are related to promoting Romania and the business opportunities offered by the industry, collaboration with local and central authorities for the development of the sector, development of educational programs for young people who are choosing a career in the business services industry.
“On my mandate, my priority is to promote Romania to investors interested in this sector. The quality of the workforce and the value-added services make Romania an attractive destination, along with a competitive level of costs/competitive pricing. In addition, the current context may be favourable for Romania. Globally, companies are reviewing their costs and rebuilding their outsourcing strategies, and our speed of response, ability to adapt to new conditions (given by COVID-19) and the fact that we have continued to deliver services at a high quality level, compared to other regions, it reconfirms us in the top of relocation options. In order to attract more investment, as has happened in Poland, close cooperation with central and local authorities is also needed to ensure the necessary facilities. The second objective is related to the development of this sector in smaller cities, but with great potential in terms of workforce, local higher education structures and business infrastructure”, says Ciprian Dan, President of ABSL.
Source: ABSL Romania

Italian outsourcing company Comdata has leased 4,200 sqm of office space in the new mixed-use project developed by Romanian group River Development near the Bucharest Polytechnic University – The Light.

Comdata’s new multilinguistic customer management center in Bucharest became operational in April 2020 and the lease covers a period of over 5 years, according to River Development.

The center will have about 400 employees, at first, who will serve multinational companies operating on multiple markets. Comdata wants to offer services in top European languages as well as in less circulated languages such as Scandinavian or Eastern European.

“Multilingual services are a strategic priority for Comdata, and the demand from global companies has increased by 33% from 2018 to 2019. In Bucharest, we find a strong mix of European languages, with more than 20 languages spoken, many young speakers of foreign languages and a multicultural environment. The workforce in Bucharest has experience in both BPO and SSC (shared services centers), as frontline professionals, but also as managers,” said Andreas Milbert, Comdata’s Group Chief Operating Officer.

The Comdata center will be located in The Light One office building, with a leasable area of 21,653 sqm, which also has medical services operator Regina Maria among its tenants.
The Light mixed-use project, developed by River Development, a company controlled by Romanian investor Ion Radulea, will include three office buildings with a total area of 98,721 sqm and a residential compound with 196 apartments.

The new company, which will bring together more than 800 employees locally, will support customers around the world on their digital transformation journey.
Nagarro, a global leader in digital engineering and technology solutions owned by the German group Allgeier SE, and iQuest, a company specializing in software development and part of the same group, will join forces in Romania. The new local organization will bring together over 800 employees.

The merger between iQuest Group and Nagarro in Romania is part of the business strategy of Allgeier SE, a company listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The strategy aims to group all entities within the technology portfolio of Allgeier into a separate business unit that aims at independent listing, namely the role of an innovative, full-service, global leader in digital engineering and technology solutions.
“Both Nagarro and iQuest are professional services organizations with a solid culture having more similarities than differences. This outlines the advantages of our decision. Both organizations build software solutions based on a consistent understanding of customer needs and with a very high versatility and added value. On the other hand, the new organization will be able to access markets not yet addressed by each of the two companies”, says Voicu Stoiciu, Managing Director of Nagarro in Romania.

The customers served by iQuest are mainly located in geographical areas such as Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. They operate mainly in areas such as Financial Services, Life Sciences, Transportation & Logistics, Utilities, and Telecom. On the other hand, Nagarro – who has been operating locally since 2005 – uses a global delivery model and has customers in areas like Manufacturing, Transportation & Logistics, Banking & Insurance, Automotive, Digital, Retail, and Telecom. After the merger, the new company anticipates a consolidation of the common areas of activity, respectively, an expansion in the new areas by exploiting the group’s potential.

While iQuest will be rebranded to Nagarro over the following months, at an operational level the two organizations will not undergo any changes: Nagarro and iQuest specialists will have the opportunity to work on higher number of projects and will have access to new technologies, experiences and delivery models. Thus, project teams can now have specialists from several geographical areas, operating on a global delivery model, as well as from areas of expertise that were not available before.
The new company will bring together over 800 employees locally.
Following the transaction, in Romania the two companies will reunite approx. 815 employees, mostly part of iQuest. Nagarro in Romania, based in Timisoara, has 155 employees, and iQuest, with offices in Cluj, Brasov, Bucharest, Craiova, and Sibiu, and has over 660 employees.
The transition phase will be governed by a team formed by the management of the two companies, transferring the current responsibilities to the new configuration, which involves repositioning the iQuest management in roles with global impact in the new organization. Voicu Stoiciu, who currently holds the role of Managing Director at Nagarro in Romania, will oversee the operations of the new entity formed in Romania. Following the merger, the new company representatives expect that the current year will bring opportunities for growth, both in terms of existing and new projects.
“While we are navigating the current Covid situation, we are excitedly looking forward to our next chapter as one company. I am convinced, that our shared culture, in which customer orientation, agility, open communication and the employees themselves have a particularly high priority, will underpin our promising future”, concludes Voicu Stoiciu.
The new company will bring together over 800 employees locally in Rumania.

The one-year-old company is nurtured in tradition, hungry for talent and driven by the ambition to put Bratislava on the world map. We spoke with Juraj Barus, Global Director of Clarios Finance Shared Service Centers, about the company’s constant evolvement.
Why doesn’t your brand sound familiar in the shared services family?


We are the new kids on the block. Well, not entirely new. We started out under the auspices of Johnson Controls in 2011 as the automotive battery division and later moved to new headquarters on Pribinova street in Bratislava. Exactly one year ago we unbundled and became an independent brand, but we still share the same building near Eurovea and, of course, we occupy the better parts of it. We just leased out one more floor, so that indicates our operation is growing in spite of the COVID-19 crisis and upcoming economic turmoil. Most of our workforce is also inherited from the most experienced ranks in Johnson Controls, and that is not the only reason why we feel a special sentiment here. We are proud to have 130 years of technological excellence circulating in our veins and we definitely want to build on this heritage.
Do you mean by sticking to the innovations of your product line?
Sure, that’s one part of it. We are proud of what we do at Clarios. Our product is the exact answer to the challenges we face today – through environmentally friendly technologies and the upcoming wave of electric vehicles we can survive the crisis. Clarios creates the most advanced battery technologies for virtually every type of vehicle. We are a global leader in energy storage solutions, powering one in three cars in the world. BMW, Toyota, Ford, and Daimler are just a fraction of the brands we deliver to.
Here comes the kicker: Almost 80 percent of our batteries are produced from recycled materials, and we can recycle a further 99 percent of every piece that has left our plant. So, our batteries are innovative and sustainable. In 2019 we recycled 8000 batteries per hour and our production cycle reduced greenhouse emissions by 90 percent. If you are asking big businesses to be carbon neutral, we are already delivering it for the planet. Still, not everybody is familiar with Clarios, but our product families are widely recognised, such as Varta, Optima, Mac, Delkor, LTH and Heliar.
But batteries are not produced here in Bratislava.
No, they are not. Our business partner organisation here in Bratislava cooperates with 56 production, recycling and distribution centres worldwide, and over 16 000 members of the global Clarios family. In fact, our business centre is becoming the first real hub operating from Bratislava on a global scale. People in our offices are managing global projects on other continents so this level of responsibility makes us unique on the Slovak market. Our global and regional roles include finance, IT, accounting, tax, procurement and others. There are not many other places in Central Europe where you can shape and design some global processes. To make things even more exciting, we are evolving from a standard shared service centre into a knowledge-based business partner organisation, sweeping away the boundaries between the business and shared service centres of yesterday.

Well, that requires an exceptionally skilled and gifted workforce.
We are aiming for nothing less than that. We have to. Our responsibility must be matched with the ambition of those who want to walk the extra mile. Talent is always welcome in our premises; we promise to keep it and nurture it. Our team recently developed its own Clarios Finance Academy that provides additional training for obtaining standard certifications like ACCA and a bundle of communication and soft skills trainings. The training package our team members get is extremely generous compared to other businesses. I am not bragging about it; this is just a fair deal for anyone who wants to grow and taste our philosophy.
So, are you hiring? What is your goal?
Yes, we are talking about 80 more positions on site. We currently have around 200. We are looking for top professionals, from IT architects to senior financial roles, all of whom can deal with global challenges. Apart from a rich variety of trainings, we maintain the high standard of our offices through modern catering and day-care services, a good work-life balance and our adaptation to the new normal after the COVID-19 pandemic. We understand that people need to enjoy their families, so we allow them to work from home when necessary. We care about every detail of their wellbeing. Our building is new, but we are upgrading our offices to create a modern space for friendly conversations and collaborations as our team members are slowly coming back after lockdown. We want to stay positive. Crises will strike, we know that, but our products are stable and sustainable, so we are not scaling back.
SOURCE: Slovak Spectator



Čítajte viac: https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22419677/powering-up-global-operations-in-bratislava.html

WNS (Holdings) Limited (NYSE: WNS), a leading provider of global Business Process Management (BPM) services, today announced a strategic contract win with EV Cargo, a global logistics company providing mission-critical supply chain services to the world’s leading brands. EV Cargo is partnering with WNS to build and manage an integrated Finance & Accounting (F&A) operations solution for its expanding worldwide business.

WNS will leverage its Shipping & Logistics experience and F&A expertise to help EV Cargo build a consolidated operating model including a Shared Services Center, and provide support in designing their new financial Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.

"We are delighted to be chosen as a strategic partner by EV Cargo. We are committed to co-creating a joint vision for the future – standardizing and consolidating EV Cargo’s F&A operations, building agility, and driving business transformation led by technology and analytics,” said Keshav R. Murugesh, Group CEO, WNS.

“EV Cargo is on a journey to become a global logistics technology leader, managing supply chains for the world’s leading brands. We are excited to partner with WNS on critical elements of our value creation plans, spanning execution of our digital strategy, implementation of a robust and comprehensive financial ERP system across our global subsidiaries, and creation of our EV Cargo F&A platform,” said Heath Zarin, CEO, EV Cargo.

The British financial and banking company Barclays is hiring new qualified employees in the Czech Republic. At its centre of excellence in Prague, it plans to employ approximately two hundred people, particularly specialists in the areas of software development, project management and risk and business analysis.
 
Barclays had 550 employees in the Czech Republic at the beginning of 2020. The initial staff increase occurred this year following the expiration of the company’s contract with the service provider EPAM, whose 250 employees transferred directly to Barclays upon mutual agreement.
 
“Our operations in Prague play a key role in Barclays’ technology ecosystem. Thanks to the highly educated and qualified workforce combined with outstanding infrastructure, our expansion in Prague will enable us to provide more comprehensives services,” explains Steve Penketh, operations manager at Barclays.
 
CzechInvest has been collaborating with Barclays since 2015. The company’s operations in the Czech Republic include a major technology centre, which currently employs more than eight hundred developers in the centre of Prague. CzechInvest assists the British company particularly in the area of human resources, as well as with arranging residence visas and with investment projects. “CzechInvest is a proud partner of Barclays’ activities. We are pleased to continue in our collaboration with this company on the development and cultivation of the Czech technology and business environment,” says Patrik Reichl, CEO of CzechInvest.

Arm is growing its staff of developers by more than 50% in its R&D centre in Budapest. The technology company, which is specialised in IT, particularly in microprocessors and graphic processors, chips and network devices, is witnessing its Hungarian centre gain even more importance through its expansion project of EUR 9 million, which will result in the creation of 60 more jobs in research and development.
https://hipa.hu/arm-is-expanding-its-r-d-centre-in-budapest

Arm, which was founded in 1990 with its headquarters in Cambridge, is concerned with the design smart phones and IoT tools and devices, artificial intelligence, 5G networks and development of corporate infrastructure solutions. Arm's advanced, energy-efficient processor designs have enabled intelligent computing in more than 165 billion chips and its technologies securely power products from the sensor to the smartphone and the supercomputer. Together with 1,000+ technology partners, Arm is at the forefront of designing, securing and managing all areas of compute from the chip to the cloud. Their products and services are available to use in the most diverse sectors and industries, from car manufacturing to smart cities and healthcare. The company has over 6,000 employees coming from 61 countries.
Arm has been present in Hungary since 2014, and now gives work to more than 100 colleagues as compared to the initial headcount of 20. The scope of activities both includes conventional digital hardware development and embedded software development, and also operational support is given to the parent company's different business units. Professionals in R&D focus, among others, work on the design of energy-efficient processors, intelligent application technologies – from sensors to servers, including smart phones, tablets, corporate infrastructure and Internet of Things (IoT) tools. The fields of application are ever widening with growing demand for use in hand-held devices and industrial applications, or in the development of self-driving vehicles and telecommunications.
The aim of the latest employee and capacity expansion endeavour is to successfully address the challenge of the supply of improved embedded systems and system components in IoT with the help of the Budapest office. The performance of the necessary development tasks, with their complex nature, will rely on the outstanding work of a number of qualified and highly-skilled Hungarian engineers in the coming years.

Employee training projects co-financed by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is a great opportunity for all members of ABSL Latvia. Companies can receive 30%-70% costs covered for teaching Northern languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish), project management skills, IT, programming, production engineering and telematics, logistics. The financial support is available not matter the size of organization, also large companies can apply.

In order to successfully start the project realization, ABSL Latvia is organizing individual meetings with it's members and other companies form industry willing to receive EU support for employee training projects. Our goal is to collect general information on what skills are required by the industry and also to tell more about the support program as such.

Please contact the association to get more information by writing to email: monta.geidane@absl.lv