The Romanian BPM industry (including BPO and SSC sectors) is a fast-growing and attractive investment destination. The country offers a competitive business environment and highly skilled multi-lingual workforce at low cost.

Due to the remarkable performance of its IT&C sector, Romania has consolidated its position as an outsourcing hub in the CEE, the region becoming the new competitor of India. Romania’s highly skilled workforce has a better understanding of Western European culture than its Asian competitor.

The Romanian BPO market includes more than 250 companies that activate in the business service sector. More than 64,000 university graduates form the talent pool of the sector. According to sector experts, the market of outsourcing and support services in Romania is estimated at over 1.5 billion EUR.

Which are the top BPO hubs in Romania?

Bucharest is the main outsourcing location in Romania, having the widest range of skills and languages, the biggest workforce and the proximity to the headquarters of many companies. More than 75% of the entire stock is located in Bucharest, followed by the big 4 cities, Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, Iasi and Brasov. More recently, the third-tier cities, the rising stars, started to emerge. Cities such as Oradea, Constanta, Galati, Sibiu, Craiova, Bacau or Targu Mures are witnessing the start of modern development, however, still relatively moderate.

What are the benefits of  BPO and SSC expansion in Romania?

Besides the access to benefits, one of the biggest advantages of working in such a large BPO company is that people can change jobs – often multiple times – within the same company. For someone who is always up for a new challenge, being able to move from a development team, to a marketing group, to services, and back again, provides the intellectual challenge that many people seek – without having to update the resume and embark on a job search. Moreover, if an employee desires to move to another city, they won’t need to worry about finding a new job. This is called lateral transfer.

In a lateral move, an employee moves to an equivalent role in an organization, usually with a similar salary range and a job title at the same level, but to another location. Consequently, the lateral move provides a career path for employees, training, and new experiences for employees when job promotions are not available. One of the many advantages of deciding on a lateral transfer is the opportunity to gain new knowledge and skills. Another positive factor about this type of change is that the employee overcomes boredom and dissatisfaction by having a possibly new and different job with changed responsibilities, tasks, coworkers, and new customers and clients.

Moving to a new city may seem like a challenge for most employees, a chance for them to expand their accomplishments, reach, impact, and potentially influence different aspects of the work. Doing this they may also learn about different facets of the organization and how work is accomplished in different departments, job functions, and locations.

The lateral move is viewed as a continuing commitment from the company to enable the employee to continue to develop and pursue a desirable career path. It is valued as an opportunity but it also shows the loyalty of the employee to the company that helped him shape his professional life.

For the year 2019, a rapid growth of the industry is expected, and by 2025 there is expected a doubling of the labor force in the field, Romania thus falling into the global trend. The trend of the future is that outsourcing focuses more on core business activities, leaving managers free to focus more on company development and strategy.