The business services sector in Tricity is hitting full maturity. More than ten years of consistent development have brought changes to the city’s labor market and skyline alike. New buildings are reshaping the urban landscape, while the city becomes home to more and more offices of major Fortune Global 500 companies. A growing number of well-established companies with a long presence in Pomerania are now expanding their operations and upskilling. This includes more complex processes, such as big data management and process automation.
There are already 158 modern business service centers in the region that support processes in 35 languages. Between 2019 and 2020, the sector increased employment by 7.32% and at the end of last year, over 30 thousand people worked in it.
In the latest report of the Association of Business Service Leaders (ABSL 2020), the Tricity took 1st place in the ranking of business service centers in terms of assessing the factors affecting the conduct of business services centers.
Types of services
Based on the dominant profile of the surveyed organisations, we can differentiate the following types of centers operating in Tricity: IT (53%), SSC (25%), R&D (10%), BPO (7%), Centers of Excellence (4%). This shows that the inflow of FDI to Pomerania consists mostly of IT companies (IT/ITO/ITCoE) and Shared Service Centers (SSC).
Record employment
According to the latest report of the Union of Business Service Leaders (ABSL), in the period between the first quarter of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018, Tricity recorded the highest increase in employment in the BSS sector in Poland – the number of jobs increased by as much as 21% and employment level is now at 25 000 jobs.
Talent pool
The quality of the human capital in Tricity has been appreciated by investors that have transferred their advanced business support processes to Pomerania. The excellent talent pool in the region allowed for the creation of the first centers for knowledge-based services (KPO) and centers of excellence (CoE) in the region (Coleman, PwC and Thomson Reuters should be named here).
Pomeranian universities offer many unique specialisations and cooperate with investors already present in the region. Characteristic for the region is a large pool of students and graduates who are fluent in less-popular foreign languages, such as Scandinavian languages. Frequent air connections between Poland and Scandinavia also fuel the growing interest of Scandinavian investors in Pomerania. There are currently 20 Nordic companies in the region that employ over 2100 people.
Learn more about the availability of talents.
Advanced processes
The most common processes supported are software development, finance and accounting, HR and customer service. Among the more advanced processes represented in the region robotic process automation (RPA), big data analysis and machine learning should be named. As RPA is an inevitable consequence of technological development, all BSS centers are preparing themselves for this step in one way or another.
What also distinguishes Tricity on the Polish map of business services is a clearly stronger position of R&D centers. Over 3 800 people are currently working in Tricity’s R&D centers (as of Q2 2020).
Pomeranian BSS centers also specialise in:
• software development
• IT support
• data processing
• telemarketing
• customer service
• financial and accounting services
• HR and payroll services
• information management
Modern office space
The development of the BSS sector is made possible by the dynamic growth of high-standard office capacity. With almost 863 500 sqm of modern office space (as of Q2 2020). In 2021, according to JLL forecasts, the office space market in the Tricity will reach 1 million sqm. About 73% of newly established offices are in Gdańsk, the remaining part in Gdynia (22%) and Sopot (5%). Learn more about the business infrastructure.
Talent attraction
Invest in Pomerania recognises the need for the renewed support measures in response to the booming BSS sector. These include focusing on the integration of the whole sector ecosystem and support for job creation. To this end, we have launched Live more. Pomerania campaign aimed at attracting skilled talents to the region. Learn more about Live more.Pomerania.
Our other initiatives include organising quarterly meetings for senior representatives of the local BSS centers and service providers, which constitute a platform where executives can share their experience, best practices, and promote cooperation within the sector. Invest in Pomerania also supports multiple local and international events aimed at promoting the region as a superb place to live and work. Read our news.
