Letters from Hungary

Our guests were Balázs G. Nagy, president and Richárd Ránki-Kovács, managing director from Hungarian Service and Outsourcing Association (HOA) who shared their experiences about the trends of the Hungarian Business Services Sector and presented the key findings of HOA Business Services Study 2018.

Almost 40 colleagues participated in the first PMPub in 2019, and the reason for this high number is that many professionals – including project managers – are involved in Shared Services or Business Services Sector operation and projects.

Balázs G. Nagy thoroughly introduced the Business Services Sector (BSC) in Hungary and globally. He emphasized that BSC is an entire industry that – statistically – does not exist. A BSC company is not linked to this sector but to the line of business which the company operates in (eg. energy or telco sector). Despite this phenomenon, global business forced the companies to enhance their operation by managing the processes and data, which the companies dealing with. A BSC is kind of a center of excellence where part of the business is outsourced and maintained by professional people. BSCs can help to increase quality and enhance efficiency at companies. In addition to that, a BSC can inspire companies with new ideas, initiatives, and projects.

In Hungary major BSC activities are finance, accounting, HR, IT, and customer related services. There are 110 BSCs and 700 service center type of entities in Hungary. BSC is the second fast growing sector in Hungary. There are 60.000 people working in BSCs in the country, and there are 160.000 people affected by BSCs (suppliers, other service providers) in Hungary.

Further thoughts about BSC sector:

• BSC Sector can handle local economic crisis easier, because the business is managed on global basis (international companies) and thus BSC companies have more “space” to maintain the business locally.
• It is complicated to move a BSC from one country to another, and many times cost is not everything. You may consider cultural or for example knowledge-related factors before moving a BSC from one place to another.
• Project thinking is crucial in BSC Sector, because BSCs are operated by projects, or projects are common in BSCs’ life. Besides cultural fit and language, project thinking is one of the most important elements in operating a successful BSC.
• BSC can be operated everywhere in the world, where culture/people welcome a BSC company. Many times BSC is operated in a city, that was attractive to the management of the company (they love the place, the city, the whole atmosphere). Budapest’s biggest advantage is feasibility: Balázs has not heard about BSCs that failed in the capital.
• The biggest BSC country in Europe is the UK.
• Balázs has concern about involving second tier cities (Pécs, Szeged, Debrecen, Miskolc etc.) at higher intensity in terms of BSC operation in Hungary.
• It is hard to make the rival companies to cooperate in this sector, but in Hungary HOA tries to find and support cooperation opportunities (eg. there is a BSC round table in Debrecen which incorporates 10 local BSCs).
• The Business Services Sector is very complex. In this environment you have to be a good project manager, but on top of that you have to possess line of business knowledge as well.
• In many cases, local people perform better than foreign experts because they have wide domestic experience and knowledge.  

Richárd Ránki introduced HOA and its operation. The association was founded in 2004. HOA’s most important goal is to “represent the interests of the sector, support its members and organize regular programs with the aim of creating a strong community”.

HOA’s organization comprises the board and the management team. Board members are delegated by BSC/SSC companies and the executives make the decisions in terms of HOA’s strategy, programs and operation.

Besides sharing the knowledge, HOA lobbies the government in order to enhance the outsourcing and business services in Hungary. HOA holds meetings for BSC/SSC community members, and also there is a business breakfast for top leaders of domestic BSCs. Richárd presented the HOA Business Services Study 2018, which was prepared in collaboration with HIPA and BCE (Corvinus University of Budapest). Please find the summary of the study at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWyU9IoVW0o

In the name of PMI Budapest, Hungarian Chapter, we would like to thank Balázs and Richárd for coming and sharing their thoughts in PMPub!

We would like to remind you that the next PMPub will be in May
and the Art of Projects 2019 conference will be on 7th November

The event’s topic is “The Hungarian Business Services Sector in 2018 - Presentation of the Key Findings of the Traditional HOA Business Services Study 2018, Prepared in Collaboration with HIPA and BCE”. In 2018, HOA published, in cooperation with HIPA (Hungarian Promotion Agency) and BCE (Corvinus University of Budapest) its traditional HOA Business Services Survey for the sixth time in order to provide a comprehensive study to its members and all the players of the sector in Hungary, in the region and globally.

The study contains reliable, comparable and accurate data to all stakeholders of the industry. Based on our research, results of the HOA-HIPA-BCE survey are reliable and representative by more significant factors like size, location, industry, services portfolio, strategies of the BSCs (Business Services Centers) and BPOs (Business Process Outsourcing firms).

The presentation of the key findings and the successive panel discussion with the participation of HOA management will provide an overall picture of the industry and a snapshot of the sector in 2018.

Our guests are 
Richárd Ránki Managing Director and
Balázs G. Nagy President of 
Hungarian Service and Outsourcing Association (HOA)

We are looking forward to an engaging and collaborative session.

Come and take part in the PMPub!

• When: 13^th February 2019, from 18:00 (registration starts at 17:30)
• Where: Szimpla Kert, 1075 Budapest, Kazinczy utca 12. (new place for events at Szimpla, right next door to the main entrance).

You can register here!