Paweł Panczyj, managing director ABSL: the modern business services sector in Poland is expanding

The shared services sector is also searching, apart from for people, for large amounts of office space. If we assume that an individual employee needs 10 sqm of office space, this means that we know what this sector will require if it employs 150,000 people. If we assume an increase of 15,000–20,000 people per year for ten years, we have really significant figures. The ITO sector growth also means growth in the real estate sector.

The sector is expanding much faster in Poland and the CEE region than in India – in Poland it is growing by 19 pct per year, but only by 9 pct. in India. Of course, there is a different scale, but in Poland we have much more complex processes and it will be much harder to move them from here.

Poland has to take care of the quality of education. It should be at the same level or higher than now. This will guarantee that the sector will still grow and in the services that are the most complex, such as financial analysis, engineering research and R&D.

If Poland reforms its tax and legal systems, this would create the opportunity to attract such services for investment funds. ABSL and Baker McKensey have both said that if Poland has similar legal and tax systems to Ireland or Luxemburg, an additional 100,000 work places could be created in the country within the next four to seven years. And these would be very well paid jobs. Currently the average wage in the sector is PLN 5,000, whereas the average salary for investment fund services sector is around PLN 8,500–9,000. So there is still room for further growth.