Hungary is a favourite of shared service centres

For years, it has been a positive trend that shared service centres (SSC) are keen on arriving at Central Europe because of highly qualified, relatively cheap workforce, because of developed infrastructures and favourable geographical locations, and Hungary wasn’t left out of this positive tendency on the workforce market either. The sector’s first representatives have appeared in Budapest in 1991 (HP, Procter & Gamble) – since then, the sector has gone through an immense progress, and, according to HIPA’s statistics, 37 000 employees are currently working at 100 SSC-s, operated by 90 companies, in the country. Solely in 2015, the number of people working in the sector has increased by 10%.

SSC-s have very diverse activities in Hungary as well, for example IT support, financial and accounting activities, HR activities, phone support, etc. Their evolution has also begun, as “centre of excellence”-certified centres have appeared, which provide more complex services and activities of a higher quality, making it able to reduce the higher fluctuation present in the sector while also building offices that showcase the newest trends and designer elements.

It was recently announced that thanks to USA-based Flowserve Corporation, a new SSC is about to set foot in Hungary, providing approximately 400 job vacancies in Debrecen. There’s plenty of new arrivals, as Eaton is developing its new office space of 2300 m2 in Krisztina Palace – set to be completed by the end of the year; Váci Greens’, where a new professional campus is forming, development is currently underway, where GE occupies several buildings to manage its own SSC. Already functioning centres aren’t idle here either, as British Telecom have been occupying further spaces since 2014, while Telenor has also decided on expanding, resulting in a move from Törökbálint to Budapest in 2015.

SSC-s are not only arriving from the private sector, as international organisations are also steadily coming to Hungary. Recently, FAO’s Shared Services Centre has also been expanded in the building of the Ministry of Agriculture, making a total amount of 4600 m2 available for the UN’s organisation to use. Last October, UNICEF’s 6100 m2 centre was opened in Central Udvar. Last year also saw the expansion of the SSC for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which was relocated to Duna Tower.

The world of SSC-s functions so professionally In Hungarian cities that the Budapest and Debrecen offices of British Telecom (BT) were awarded with the title of Best SSC of East-Central Europe at the Central Eastern European Shared Services and Outsourcing Awards in Warsaw this spring. BT’s Hungarian history is a good example for the changes that happened in the past 25 years, as they begin their work here in 2007 in only three departments, whereas currently they are working in more than 50 different areas, in 18 different languages, with 1800 employees.

The investment projects managed by HIPA also have great results: in 2015, out of 67 positive investment decisions, 12 originated in the SSC sector, which got it to second place after the vehicle industry. As far as newly established jobs are concerned, the SSC sector had a share of 17% and a total of more than 2200 new vacancies, which was also enough for second place. Positive tendencies are also indicated by the fact that 2014 also had good results, as out of 60 investments, 11 were related to the service industry, which generated more than 3000 jobs. According to the investment association, thanks to its 20+ years of experience, Hungary is now considered a full-fledged, tried and tested location, to where most of the projects arrive from Western Europe and the United States.

(Source: http://realista.hu)

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