Business service and technology solutions provider Genpact, a division of General Electric, will open its second Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) centre on the Romanian market in Cluj Napoca, in early October. It intends to hire several hundred people for its new centre.
"We estimate we will have several hundred people working in Cluj in the medium term," Ahmed Mazhari, head of operations for Romania at Genpact told ZIARUL FINANCIAR. He added the number of Genpact employees on the domestic market would reach 2,000 within the next two years. The company entered Romania in 2005 when it opened its Bucharest-based service centre, where it currently employs a staff of 650. BPO involves outsourcing some of the processes of a specific company, which are unrelated to the core business of that company. For instance, an automotive component manufacturer will outsource the operations of its IT or accounting departments, in order to focus on its core business.
Genpact is the second company to announce the decision to hire a large number of people in Cluj, after Nokia officials recently announced they would recruit 3,500 people to run their production facilities in Jucu (Cluj county).
"The business is growing fast and we were not sure Bucharest could sustain this growth in terms of recruiting talent." said Mazhari justifying his decision to open the second BPO centre outside Bucharest.
The players in the BPO industry are among the most active employers in the economy and largely seek people who speak foreign languages and have various technical skills (i.e. accounting, IT, etc.).
Cluj was one of three cities on the short list in the evaluation process Genpact conducted last year, along with Brasov and Iasi. "After a two-month due diligence (October-December 2006), we chose Cluj from the three locations. Brasov and Iasi were quickly struck off the list, almost simultaneously," Mazhari explained. However, he would not reveal the value of the investment required to open the centre in Cluj.
To decide which of the three cities would be chosen for the investment, the company used a set of criteria to assess the potential of each location. "When we considered opening the service centre, our list of criteria included: the existence of an international airport, the current business environment, the number of university graduates available and the possibility of finding language skills," explained Mazhari.
Cluj-Napoca rated well in the evaluation having also the advantage of an almost 25% student population. Brasov is geographically well placed, but has the drawback that people often move to Bucharest, which could be a long-term problem when it comes to keeping talents within the company, added Mazhari. In addition, the city cannot compete with powerful university cities such as Iasi and Cluj, in terms of the number of students.
One of the main reasons why Iasi was ruled out was the fact that there was no international airport.
Despite rejecting the two other cities, Mazhari says that they will not be permanently struck off Genpact's list in terms of investments.
Genpact is scheduled for floatation on the New York Stock Exchange in a matter of weeks, where it expects to raise approximately 600 million dollars.
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