Investment promotion conference was organised first time in Szeged by Szeged Pólus Development Non-profit Ltd. and HOA-Hungarian Service and Outsourcing Association with a focus on the attractiveness of Szeged regarding shared service companies and on how to serve the needs of professionals.

The conference was held in the Art Hotel under the name “The present of SSC in Szeged, the future of SSC is Szeged!”

The business service sector can be a huge potential for Szeged according to the the opinion of the speakers. Vice Mayor for Urban Development Sándor Nagy noted that the service sector in Szeged has been developing dynamically over the past decade, especially on the field of IT. In representation of the investment promotion team of Szeged Pólus Development Non-profit Ltd., head of department Péter Plavetz explained in his presentation that Szeged is ready to welcome new companies, whether it is a multinational company or a manufacturing unit. Each year, more students graduate at the University of Szeged than who is able to find job. This situation could be solved in the future, similarly to the success of the recent years, if a multitude of multinational companies came to the city.

Nowadays, multinational business service providers are also looking the possibility of establishment beside Budapest, especially in the cities with university background and good infrastructure. The most important aspect of their decision is to have the right number of skilled employees locally, said Dorottya Mártonffy-Nagy, consultant of Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency. She admitted, that at the beginning it was not easy to assure multinational companies to broaden their horizon and to not only focus on Budapest when looking for new investment location in Hungary.

Thanks to the extensive trainings offered by the University of Szeged, graduates have high added-value knowledge and language skills. The value of the language skills is becoming more and more important, companies are looking for young people who speak 1-2 or even 3 languages, according to the statement of Katalin Fritzné Szénási, founder of Recruitment Solutions Ltd.

Thanks to the collaboration of the University of Szeged and BP, which has created 500 workplaces in Szeged since 2017, this year, the popular SSC course has already been launched in the fourth semester. The aim of the collaboration is to present the SSC sector to the students through BP’s own operation. So far, 80 students has learnt about the operation of the service sector and gained insight into the daily life of a global multinational and multicultural energy company – stated Rózsa Veres, capability team lead in BP and by Dr. Andreász Kosztopulosz, General Vice-Dean University of Szeged, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.

The conference proved to be an excellent opportunity to present the real estate market of Szeged. In a joint presentation by Leila Szénási-Laoubi (General Manager, Proinvest Real Estate Ltd.) and Bence Bozsó (General Manager, Limit Real Estate Agency Ltd.) the current situation of the real estate market was presented, along with the office supply of the city. At this point of the conference, the audience got information about the real estate development progress in Szeged and Erika Vörösné Fülöp (founder, Kaas Real Estate Ltd.) presented the plans of a new office building which could be the future location of a multinational company in the city.

Attendees of the conference, in addition of getting information about the SSC course at the University, the HR and real estate market, could also see interesting presentations by the lecturers of Randstad and PwC.

Csaba Demeter, Technology Operations Manager of Randstad Hungary Ltd. provided sometimes unforeseeable facts in his presentation focusing on questions like what are the main qualities employees are searching for; important facts which employers do not pay enough attention to, and demonstrated the main characteristics of an attractive employer.

The professionalism of the conference is also well illustrated by the presentation of the lecturers of Price Waterhouse Coopers – Gábor Halmosi, Director, Accounting Advisory and György Lakos, Senior Consultant, IT Risk Assurance – presenting the process of digital workforce transformation and process mining. While these processes may have been potential for the representatives of multinational companies, thanks to the informative presentation they may serve as examples to consider for smaller companies, too.

The closing event was a roundtable discussion which was attended by the representatives of the companies already chose Szeged – Erika Hackenberger, Head of Procurement and Infrastructure Management, IT Services Hungary Ltd., Viktor Kenezevics, Head of Center Szeged & Head of Country, BP BSC Ltd., Levente Nemcsók, Shared Service Center Manager and Kálmán Kiss, Head of CSC from Provident Plc. and Gábor Balázs, Manager, Software Engineering, GE Healthcare Magyarország Ltd. Participants of the discussion expressed their opinion on why they chose Szeged as their second location in Hungary.

As a conclusion of the panel discussion moderated by Balázs Horváth, Director, KPMG Hungary, it is worth opening to Szeged. The experiences and satisfaction of the companies already present in the city and the presence of the university are also really important.

Photos: Aurél Iványi