The Renaissance of Outsourcing

Outsourcing's Renaissance is a fresh concept emerging on the local market, referring to a shift of paradigms in patterns of doing business. In past years, together with the ceaseless newly-launching technologies in the IT&C sector, outsourcing closely followed this development trend and it is no wonder that Romania is now one of Europe's most-sought destinations for business services investors, such as BPO, ITO or SSC segments,

2015-06-13 19:30:29 - From the Print Edition

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As a natural move to follow the market's voice and needs, The Diplomat - Bucharest, the English-language business magazine, organized the first edition of the Romanian Outsourcing Awards for Excellence 2015, together with the Who's Who in the outsourcing sector in Romania. As a valid follow-up of its previous Outsourcing Summit event organized this year, the first edition of the Romanian Outsourcing Awards for Excellence proved to be an elite event and a platform to recognize, reward and celebrate the success of the most prominent firms acting in the Outsourcing - BPO, ITO and SSC market in Romania, in the perspective of building a tradition and a long-term commitment to celebrate the performance in a fast-developing and challenging sector.

The event was supported by strategic partners Outsourcing Advisers, ABSL - The Association of Business Service Leaders in Romania, ANIS - Employers' Association of the Software and Services Industry, gold partners Teamnet and Wipro, partners Accenture, Genesis, Genpact, JLL, WNS, the participation of CGS Romania and Colliers International and the support of APDETIC (The Association of Producers and Distributors for IT&C Equipments) and Cluj IT.

Romanian Outsourcing Awards for Excellence is a high profile event, attended by important representatives from the Romanian government, senior figures from Romania's business and civil society and the top levels of the Outsourcing sector community. In the last few months, a Jury formed by the most prominent personalities in the industry analyzed, measured and compared results for 15 award categories in their role to recognize the outstanding success of companies and individuals in special projects and areas of business as well as overall involvement in the development of the country's business climate. The Jury was formed by Radu Puchiu, Secretary of State, Government of Romania, Diana Voicu, State Secretary, Ministry of Justice, (former Secretary of State, Ministry for Information Society), Ministry for Information Society, Varujan Pambuccian, Member, Commission for Information Technology and Communications, Chamber of Deputies, Amalia Sterescu, Senior Business Consultant, Outsourcing Advisors, Valerica Dragomir, Executive Director, ANIS, Francesca Postolache, Partner, Audit Services, PwC Romania, Mihaela Robu, Business Development Manager, ACCA - South-Eastern Europe, Dan Zaharia, Senior Leasing Consultant, EXTIND Management.

The event's first session benefited from the Welcoming word of Diana Voicu, State Secretary, Ministry of Justice, (former Secretary of State, Ministry for Information Society):
"As a Jury member and part of a worthy Jury panel, we had to evaluate so many innovative ideas in so many businesses which face equally sharp competiveness. The local outsourcing market is among the top ten developing destinations for opportunities offered to investors and entrepreneurs. The market is growing constantly, but behind this growth we should consolidate a management that observes and follows the world's dynamics and tendencies. We face an increasing number of artificial intelligence, robots and technologies, an increasing demand for smart solutions, cloud-computing and the increasing number of operational partnerships to offer multi-sourcing solutions to the clients. Many of the company representatives present here in the audience contributed to the shaping of Romania's Digital Agenda and therefore, I further address to them a challenge: Can we also shape a strategy in five to ten years for the outsourcing industry in Romania, starting from three scenarios used so far in partnership with the Romanian Academy? The first scenario would be: Nobody cares, defining a market with no strategy and vision, also no initiative. The second similar pessimist scenarios is called ′Outsourcing under Threat′, describing a lack of orientation towards the client's ever changing needs and ignoring the innovative trends. The third scenario describes a more optimist perspective: ′Outsourcing Renaissance′, a change of paradigms where companies are joining in partnerships in order to offer multi-sourcing solutions to clients and by doing this, becoming a true joined economic force. While performing the process of evaluating the companies within the last month's Jury sessions, we eagerly looked for start-up initiatives in this field and we concluded that these endeavours have rather a low profile. At the ministerial level, we support these initiatives through the five or six competitiveness poles in Romania. Also, as a conclusion of the Jury sessions, I believe that the business models proposed and used by the private sectors can become models to be followed by the public sector, in terms of ethics and integrity."

By continuing the ideas developed by his forerunner, Razvan Sighinas, Teamnet IT Operations General Manager, took the floor and mentioned that Romanian Outsourcing Awards is an event long-time awaited by the outsourcing industry in Romania:
"In the past ten years, this industry developed tremendously and now the results are present. There are solutions developed and delivered by the local market and used at the global level, critical systems used for many clients, at the international level. The maturity of the market emerges at a vital moment for the worldwide business and geopolitical environment but also is triggered by the opportunities of technology evolutions and the European trend to form a joined Digital market. Within this European joined market, the Romanian companies have the opportunity to shift from strictly stand-alone structures to acquisition of software as a service solution, a cloud solution and we see a 10 to 11 per cent evolution in this direction. For Teamnet, a major investment vector is The Internet of Things market, where we develop solutions for public services, healthcare, defence etc. In terms of human capital, communication infrastructure and regulatory frame, Romania has an opportunity and it must capitalize on these basic conditions."

FIRST SESSION

The brief market outlook and trends' outline anticipated the first category to be awarded within the Outsourcing Gala Awards, with the first title, for the:

BPO COMPANY OF THE YEAR

The Award was offered by Francesca Postolache, Partner, Audit Services, PwC Romania.
The nominees for this category were: ACCENTURE SERVICES, COMPUTER GENERATED SOLUTIONS, CONNECTYS SERV TELECOM, WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES, and WNS GLOBAL SERVICES.
The Award went to Computer Generated Solutions (CGS ROMANIA), the largest outsourcing service provider in Romania, with 13 years' experience on the local market and currently serving clients from Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America through its four locations, in Bucharest, Brasov, Sibiu and Targu Jiu, with over 3,000 employees in Romania. The company operates in multiple sectors with focus in: telecommunications, financial services, tech support, retail, entertainment and media, healthcare and life sciences, Hi-Tech and professional services. In the local market, CGS Romania is the only vendor that delivers the same range of services for competitors in telecom industry. Employees represent the most important part of a BPO process besides processes, strategy KPI's and so on. "Because we believe that our success is closely related to the individual success of each employee, CGS pays careful attention to support personal development. Fact - 97 per cent of our management team is selected from within CGS."

THE SSC COMPANY OF THE YEAR - The largest SSC business in Romania

The Award was offered by Amalia Sterescu, Senior Business Consultant Outsourcing Advisors and author of the newly launched book "Tango and Life" .
The nominees for this category were: ARISTON THERMO ROMANIA, HEWLETT PACKARD ROMANIA, SOCIETE GENERALE EUROPEAN BUSINESS SERVICES, TELUS INTERNATIONAL EUROPE
Winner: HEWLETT PACKARD ROMANIA

Amalia Sterescu said: "This event is a true celebration of the outsourcing community and if there was something missing in the past years, it was this kind of happening. The industry faces all kinds of challenges - operational, competitiveness-based and within the daily rush - it is a fortunate and welcoming occasion to celebrate the champions of this industry. Andrei Romanescu, the managing director of HP Global e-Business Operations Centre (GeBOC), mentioned at the receiving ceremony that the award is for the 3,000 employees of the company in Romania. "The financial figures and the presence of the awarding event define the evolution of the outsourcing market, that delivers two per cent of the overall active employment rate in Romania and 1.4 per cent of the GDP delivered by the amounted turnovers of the companies active in this industry locally." At the end of 2014, Hewlett Packard announced it changed its global strategy, splitting the global entity in two distinct companies. This also had effects in Romania, where the business activities had to stabilize and expand, operate cost and capital structure improvements and focus on processes' efficiency. Currently HP delivers the largest SSC business in Romania with more than 3,000 professionals, with a pool of 3,500 reached in 2013. The company's GeBOC registered a turnover of 76.5 million Euro in 2013, with similar figures expected in 2014.

THE ITO COMPANY OF THE YEAR - The highest ranking among ITO companies listed

The Award was offered by Valerica Dragomir, Executive Director, ANIS
Nominees: ENDAVA ROMANIA, NESS ROMANIA, SOFTELLIGENCE, TEAMNET IT OPERATIONS, TOTALSOFT
Winner: ENDAVA ROMANIA

Endava is one of the leading IT Services companies in the region and among the most active IT employers in Romania, having over 1,200 people in its offices in Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi and Pitesti. In Romania, Endava had over 37 million Euro worth of revenues in 2014, a 46 per cent increase year on year. Endava had a headcount growth of over 80 per cent over the past two years in Romania and the company continued to be an employer of choice, as demonstrated by our position in second place in the "Best IT Companies to Work For in Romania" published in December 2014, a listing based on criteria that included company culture, employee pay, projects delivered, technologies used and future hiring plans. Endava is the highest ranking among ITO companies listed. In October 2014, Endava moved into its new space in Cluj to consolidate its operations in one delivery centre, which now counts 600 people, and this way it will have the capacity to grow to over 850 people in Cluj in the upcoming years. Endava continues to grow strongly in Iasi, where it recently passed the 300-people milestone and announced plans to hire up to 100 IT specialists by the end of 2015. In their Bucharest office, the company has more than 300 people and plans to move to a larger office space in the next months to accommodate growth up to 650 people, in addition to recently opening a new office in Pitesti where they aim to have over 50 people by the end of this year.

EMPLOYER OF THE YEAR IN OUTSOURCING: The largest BPO employer and talent developer

The award was offered by Francesca Postolache, Partner, Audit Services, PwC Romania
Nominees: ENDAVA ROMANIA, GENPACT ROMANIA, LUXOFT, SOCIETE GENERALE EUROPEAN BUSINESS SERVICES
Winner: GENPACT ROMANIA

Genpact is the global leader in designing, transforming and running intelligent business operations, generating impact for its clients. Growing rapidly and also drawn to Romania as the largest BPO employer and talent developer, Genpact has in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca a multilingual (20+ languages) workforce of over 2,500 employees. Growing from one client to over 50 multinational companies, from a handful of employees to more than 4,000, from one site to 12 and taking our official customer recognition score to 49 per cent (for quality of services), Genpact's employees work in a truly global environment, serving 40 of the most renowned companies and covering a wide range of services, from Finance & Accounting, to Order to Cash, Source to Pay, IT Services & Product Support, HR Operations, Customer Service and Collection. So far, they have accomplished: a compound annual growth rate of 15 per cent for the past five years, over 1,400 new hires in 2014 alone, out of which approximately 800 were hired on entry level positions, over 1,200 Lean certified employees & 220+ Green Belt certifications, launching the first European Learning Centre in Bucharest, 900+ CSR volunteers, more than 3,300 volunteering hours and over 58,000 Euro donated to charity and Gold Partner for United Way.

AWARD FOR OUTSOURCING PROFESSIONAL: Fast developing career

The Award was presented by Francesca Postolache, Partner, Audit Services, PwC Romania
Winner: CRISTINA PISCOCI, PROJECT MANAGER, CGS ROMANIA

Cristina joined the CGS team as a customer sales representative in 2004. She is described by colleagues and mentors as hard-working, well-organized, fast-learning, self-motivated, committed to individual and team objectives. She has quickly become a trusted team-member, reaching individual performance indicators and significantly contributing to team success, helping new hires onboard, supporting them to apply working procedures, and conducting constructive "agent to agent" coaching. In about one year she evolved from sales representative to acting team leader on simultaneous telesales projects in different industries (telecommunications, IT, banking, publishers). In 2005 she was assigned to a new CGS project, providing services to one of the most important software manufacturers worldwide. Since 2007, she has been Project Manager for this activity.

Cristina is also responsible for leading the telesales team to accomplish goals and objectives as set by our Customer and to play by the highest standards in the international market. Her focus is mainly on ensuring people are reaching targets, raising enthusiasm within her team and managing people towards agreed objectives. In ten years, Cristina's team evolved from a junior telemarketing team (four members) to a senior tele-account managers team (19 members) having excellent knowledge of their customers' portfolios and a deep understanding of CGS Customer's solutions. The main KPIs include developing strong customers' relationships, generating well-qualified sales opportunities and managing a predictable pipeline to meet strong sales revenue.

OUTSOURCING MANAGER OF THE YEAR - Gradually growing leaders

Awarded by Valerica Dragomir, Executive Director, ANIS
Nominees: MONICA JIMAN , PENTALOG GROUPE ROMANIA, SIMONA VASILESCU, ARISTON THERMO ROMANIA SSC, VIVEK BAKSI, WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES
Winner: MONICA JIMAN, Deputy CEO, PENTALOG

As of August 2011, Monica holds the position of Deputy CEO of Pentalog. She took over the operational tasks associated with the administration of the post, which includes production management and its structures, supervision and direction of financial reporting, management and development of existing partnerships, steering systems, technical direction and nursery. Prior to this position, Monica served as Chief Operating Officer (May 2009 - July 2011). Monica Jiman joined Pentalog as a trainee in 2003 in New Orleans. A few months later, the former Romanian student returned to Romania and managed commercial and marketing activities of the group. In 2004, with the opening of Pentalog's agency in Bucharest, Monica became responsible for the agency as part of the human resource management (especially the recruitment of high-level specialists) and budget management besides the development of the local market. In 2007, she was entrusted with the trade development in Eastern Europe and her responsibilities included the marketing of Pentalog offshore activities in Europe. Gradually, Monica began to conduct all operational activities in Eastern Europe and led the strategic development agencies in the region, in collaboration with local officials. In early 2009, Monica moved to a four-month mission in Hanoi (Vietnam) to support the implementation of business processes at the first Asian branch to make the first recruitments and implement good practices in the processes management and local production. Monica is also a member of the Board and the Committee for Pentalog.

SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP - Committed to his kind

The Award was offered by Diana Voicu, State Secretary, Ministry of Justice, (former Secretary of State, Ministry for Information Society).
Winner: VOICU OPREAN, CEO, AROBS TRANSILVANIA SOFTWARE

In presenting this award, Diana Voicu mentioned that this category enjoyed a large discussion pool regarding the award assignment, and "the winner is a true model for the ′Outsourcing Renaissance′ concept, as he created innovative solutions for business and invested a large amount of resources in developing his team, within a general perspective of being involved in the community he belongs to."
Voicu Oprean is an entrepreneur focused on developing and distributing web, mobile, embedded, and cloud software solutions, with extensive experience in outsourcing for the travel and hospitality industry. He started AROBS Transilvania Software in June 1998, with the main goal to promote Romanian IT software specialists and their ability to work from Romania and thus offer them good career opportunities in Romania. AROBS Transilvania Software currently employs over 330 specialists. The company has operational offices in Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest, Iasi, Targu Mures, Timisoara, Chisinau, Helsinki and New York. AROBS became ISO 9001:2000 certified for "Software development for local and international markets" in December 2006 and made it in the Deloitte CET 50 ranking four times in a row. This ranking includes the fastest growing IT companies in Central and Eastern Europe. Through his involvement in various start-up programs, Voicu promotes innovation, reliability, competence and entrepreneurship. He supports ideas and projects that can turn into successful products and those who initiated them become his business partners.

AWARD FOR START-UP - Supporting initiative

The Award was offered by Dan Zaharia, Senior Leasing Consultant, EXTIND Management to QODEMO company, with its Romanian office in Iasi county. Qodemo is a startup founded by three young Romanian professionals. The company's headquarters is located in Amsterdam. In January 2014, the startup was selected to be part of Rockstart Accelerator, receiving funding from this organization and was evaluated at one million Euro. Qodemo was born from the merging of Tevelop, a Romanian small outsourcing company and Dreamups, a Dutch project from Rotterdam that was called The Best European Social Startup in Monaco by JCI. The company is a research lab addressing open engineering movement and creates a set of digital tools that help makers to transform their ideas into real hardware projects. In the second part of 2014, Qodemo received funding (private amount) from the DOEN Foundation in Amsterdam, Netherlands at a valuation of three million Euro. The first product is in private beta (300 users testing and giving feedback on the app) and will be released in May-June 2015. In March 2015, Qodemo started the first European tour to visit and document the impact of Maker Movement in different cities. In the second part of 2015, the company plans to visit Asia (especially China) and US (late 2015 or early 2016). Qodemo has offices in Iasi, Amsterdam and Boston.

SECOND SESSION

The second part of the Gala event was introduced in a speech by Varujan Pambuccian, Member, Commission for Information Technology and Communications, Chamber of Deputies: "The human resource capital is a major part of the outsourcing industry and there are several things to be shifted to a more normal status. For instance, the Bologna resolution and the changing of specialization issue is one of them. I would like to address a critical case in the IT&C human resources' segment, that of the title of programmer. This specialization is seen as the ′working force for the IT industry′, which is not such a bad thing. The worker doesn't need a university graduation title and we hope that the new education law to permit high-schools and colleges to issue specialization titles can be used within the work market. As Romania is not such a large market, this is the right thing to be done in order to rearrange things in their correct architecture. Because, as we know it, at this time, Romania only produces programmers and only few of them are soft architects or designers. Still, we name ′science′ something that is rather closer to the basic workforce in the IT global system.

Romania should capitalize on its heritage, as being the sixth country in the world to firstly produce a computer, in 1957. And the local market benefits from three major conditions: high added value products, products that fit, and human resources. There is money in this industry to set the conditions of expansion on external and larger markets but the companies lack appropriate sales skills, marketing know-how, or the courage. If we develop this, it will be a major step ahead in terms of capitalizing on the intellectual copyright and this is something I really wish to witness."
Also, Roxana Tesiu, Associate Vice President, Europe Head of HR, Wipro Technologies, added: "The outsourcing industry has been a concept widely mentioned within this Gala event. But eight years ago, when the question first came up about this industry, the answer often was ‘outsourcing is not yet an industry in Romania'. And here we are now, part of a true potential and a community."

CSR INITIATIVE OF THE YEAR - A Program with a soul

The Award was presented by Amalia Sterescu, Senior Business Consultant Outsourcing Advisors
Nominees: GENESIS DEVELOPMENT, GENPACT ROMANIA, LUXOFT, TELUS INTERNATIONAL EUROPE
Winner: TELUS INTERNATIONAL EUROPE ROMANIA

TELUS International Europe (formerly CallPoint) is a leading European provider of multilingual contact centres and BPO solutions. The company serves its clients in over 30 languages including English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. The company has 1,750 positions in Europe across seven delivery centres located in: Sofia and Plovdiv (Bulgaria); Bucharest and Craiova (Romania), Manchester and Cannock (UK). In Romania, the company was founded in May, 2007 with five people. As of March, 2015, the company has 420 team members in Bucharest, 110 in Craiova and plans to reach more than 600 employees in the country by December, 2015. TELUS International Europe is a proud member of TELUS International - a global business process outsourcing company with over 16,000 team members around the world, including in Canada, the United States, Europe, Central America and the Philippines. For the TELUS Day of Giving in Romania, TELUS International Europe chose as a beneficiary the Pinocchio Centre for Social Services, located in the first district of the Romanian capital.

On September 27, 2014, 300 volunteers from Telus' Romanian team completely refurbished the Pinocchio Centre for Social Services. The goal of this event was to improve the living conditions of the 50 homeless, abandoned and abused boys and girls aged three to 18 who call the Pinocchio Centre home. The volunteers from Bucharest and Craiova, joined by Jeffrey Puritt, TELUS International President who travelled from Canada to this event, refurbished the centre inside and out. Among other activities, the volunteers built a wood gazebo, put up fences, planted trees and bushes, trimmed the green space and renovated the playground equipment. Indoors, they installed an IT room with eight computers, painted and repaired the walls of the dorms and halls making the rooms of the centre a more pleasant place to live in.

BEST ACADEMIC PROGRAM OF THE YEAR - Paving the path to work excellence

The Award was offered by Diana Voicu, State Secretary, Ministry of Justice, (former Secretary of State, Ministry for Information Society).

Nominees: BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS (BIS), UNIVERSITY ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA, IASI, IT School - AEI TEAMNET GROUP, WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES
Winner: BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS, FEAA, UNIVERSITY ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA

Established in 1997, Business Information Systems (BIS) is the newest specialization offered by the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEAA) from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi and although the programme has hit "adolescence", it has not reached the stage of denial and "arguments with parents" yet. BIS outlines a profile derived from the pattern of British and American Management/Business Information Systems. Although relatively difficult, BIS is a challenging specialization focusing not so much on theory, but mainly on a project's and application's development according to market needs. Therefore, many partner companies were invited in 2014 as guests at courses and taught students the latest trends in the market and companies' best practices. Some of their partners are: Centric, Endava, Mind Software, Xerox, Capgemini, Falcon Trading, Harte Hanks, and Amazon. Within the BIS specialization, there were created two clubs where specialized trainers are working with students: Capgemini perform SAP Business Application courses and Falcon Trading Iasi implement Microsoft Axapta programming courses. For the purpose of "strengthening" the links with the local IT outsourcing market, 35 internship contracts were signed with the IT companies. At a request from the IT outsourcing companies, 2014 established a new Master program in English, named Software, Development and Business Information Systems. Also, based on the market demands, it was increased with 50 per cent the number of students pursuing BIS specialization (reaching 150 students). In 2014, as in the previous years, more than 75 per cent of students were employed in the IT domain during their studies. As a consequence, the number of candidate students for BIS program is increasing from year to year. In 2014, the BIS program was the most required among the specializations from our Faculty, having 214 candidates.

UNIVERSITY BUSINESS COOPERATION OF THE YEAR - Practicing the work experience

The Award was presented by Varujan Pambuccian, Member, Commission for Information Technology and Communications, Chamber of Deputies
Nominees: FACULTY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA UNIVERSITY OF IASI, PREUS- ASE
Winner: FACULTY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA UNIVERSITY OF IASI

The Faculty of Computer Science developed innovative projects, jointly organized with business and industry partners. The national internship program, "Stagii pe Bune", aims at placing IT&C students in summer internships in various companies from the IT&C industry. The 11th edition of the Stagii pe Bune 2015 is the official internships program of the most important educational IT&C centres in Romania: Iasi and Bucharest. This program enables students to practice the theoretical concepts learned at the Faculty, acquiring also technical skills, team-working abilities and improving their communication skills in a professional working environment. The companies participating in this program have the opportunity to meet gifted youth, later to become their employees after graduation. There is an added value for both sides, students and IT companies.

This program in Iasi involves currently over 20 companies and student application surpasses 40 participants on average for each internship place. "BringITon!" is another awareness-raising and entrepreneurial-approaching event organized biennially by FII since 2010, in collaboration with the main academic IT actors in Iasi, aiming at making the Romanian business and academic environment aware of the investment opportunities arising from IT research. Young researchers learn from investors and business people how to turn their (research or IT development) ideas into a successful business. BringITon! has already the status of a dedicated place to establish and strengthen partnerships in the IT academic environment from Romania, investors and IT companies.

BEST OFFICE DEVELOPMENT FOR BPO/ SSC SECTOR IN BUCHAREST - A West-Gate to business

The Award was offered by Dan Zaharia, Senior Leasing Consultant, EXTIND Management
Nominees: AFI EUROPE ROMANIA, FLOREASCA BUSINESS PARK, NOVO PARK- GENESIS DEVELOPMENT, WEST GATE - GENESIS DEVELOPMENT
Winner: WEST GATE BUSINESS DISTRICT, GENESIS DEVELOPMENT

West Gate Business District is one of the largest business parks in Bucharest, developed by Genesis Development. West Gate Business District extends 75,000 sqm of leasing area, comprising an elite group of tenants made up exclusively of prestigious multinationals. The office park provides exceptional venues for international or local tenants requiring integrated office spaces. West Gate Offices has five buildings with 15,000 sqm rentable area per building of high quality Class A offices and ancillary accommodation. The complex offers an excellent combination of business, accommodation, parking spaces, leisure and medical facilities. Office park development and maintenance are carried out with proper regard for the environment, focusing on green spaces, efficient and flexible areas.

BEST OFFICE DEVELOPMENT FOR BPO/ SSC SECTOR IN TIER 2&3 - Transforming the past into the future

The Award was presented by Dan Zaharia, Senior Leasing Consultant, EXTIND Management
Nominees: CBC - CLUJ BUSINESS CENTER, CORESI BUSINESS PARK, ASCENTA MANAGEMENT, IDEO - TESTER GROUP
Winner: CORESI BUSINESS PARK, ASCENTA MANAGEMENT

Coresi Business Park is at the core of Brasov's new district, Coresi, one of the major urban regeneration projects in Romania, transforming the former UTB Tractorul industrial facility. The initial phase of Coresi Business Park consists of almost 25,000 sqm GLA of unconventional, contemporary office areas with industrial architectural elements, such as high ceilings and attic windows. The restored former industrial buildings now provide all the A class facilities and already host prestigious international and local companies from industries such as IT & telecom, business process outsourcing (BPO), shared service centres (SSC) and medical clinics. Current tenants such as CGS, Raiffeisen, IBM, Freudenberg, Waters, Fresenius and Fotonation employ approximately 2,500 young professionals. Coresi Business Park is estimated to represent approximately 50 per cent of the class A office stock in Brasov (and approximately 25 per cent of the overall office stock). The next development phases of the project will create ten new buildings, totalling up to 75,000 sqm of newly built office space over seven to ten years. The new buildings provide office spaces and leasing solutions starting from 750 sqm GLA (half floor), while complete buildings add up to a total surface of approximately 10,000 sqm GLA, laid out in low rise buildings of up to ground+ four floors.

BEST REAL ESTATE ADVISOR FOR THE OUTSOURCING INDUSTRY

The Award was offered by Dan Zaharia, Senior Leasing Consultant, EXTIND Management
Nominees: COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL, DTZ ECHINOX, JONES LANG LASALLE
Winner: DTZ ECHINOX

DTZ's office agency team in Romania provides developers, investors and tenants on the office space market with consultancy and brokerage services. The team provides expertise relating to the rental of office projects, cost optimization (contract renewal, renegotiation) and contract delivery. DTZ counted nine transactions resulting in nine contracts totalling 17,500 sqm in 2014, representing 55 per cent from the all office area transacted in 2014.

AWARD FOR INNOVATION

The Award was presented by Amalia Sterescu, Senior Business Consultant Outsourcing Advisors
Nominees: BURSA DE VALORI BUCURESTI, GENPACT ROMANIA, PENTALOG ROMANIA, WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES
Winner: WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES

Wipro Technologies, established in 2006 on the local market, is the third largest software services provider in Romania, with development centres in Bucharest and Timisoara. It has offered support services in Eastern Europe for global clients for almost one decade, for industries such as retail, FMCG, healthcare, production, and telecommunications. At the end of 2014, Wipro announced it planned to expand the operations pool in Romania and make Eastern Europe a strategic location for the company on a long-term investment timeline. Therefore, by the end of this year, the company plans to increase the employee pool by 25 per cent and reach 750 professionals. At the end of 2014, Wipro has over 600 professionals working for more than 20 clients in Eastern Europe. Wipro delivers services in 21 foreign languages for segments such as: financial, accounting, legal and acquisitions, logistics and auto, management and ITO and also plans to introduce a new service, the HRO (Human Resources Outsourcing) for a retail company. In 2013, Wipro has revenues of 21.8 million Euro and plans an increase of ten per cent this year.

The Innovation Award concluded the first edition of the ROMANIAN OUTSOURCING AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE, enjoying a large interest at its very first edition. The Diplomat - Bucharest team wishes to thank all partners and collaborators, winners and nominees of this event, anticipating the next year's edition, where we hope to see new market entries, developments, expansions, and innovative approaches in the outsourcing industry.