Finnish Metso opens SSC in Lithuania

Metso, a leading Finish minerals and process technology company, recently launched a business service centre in Vilnius. The company is steadily increasing its Lithuanian team and is planning to start employing process automation.
Ilkka Metsola, head of Metso’s business service centre, stated that Vilnius was chosen because of a strong culture of service centres supporting international companies. Moreover, he said that Vilnius was also recommended by colleagues and customers, including the Finnish steel giant Outokumpu.
“We had been looking for a site in several European countries, including Poland and Estonia. The scales were weighted in favour of Vilnius due to the presence of very good service centre ecosystem and availability of experienced and motivated employees”, Mr Metsola explained.
“We started operations in Lithuania in October, soon after the company was founded (UAB Metso Lithuania, registered in September). First, we took care of the office and other formal affairs, hired and trained the first employees. In November, we appointed Ilona Antonovičiūtė as the head of the centre and now we are revving up. Currently, there are about 50 specialists of finance, accounting, and logistics working at our centre. We expect the number to grow by the end of the year and we will continue our recruitments in 2020”, says Anne Rantanen, head of external communications at Metso.
“Our long-term objective in Lithuania is to grow, especially, seeing that initial investment in the premises, personnel, legal matters, marketing etc. have already been made and they were substantial”, Mr Metsola adds.