The business services sector is one of the hallmarks of the Polish economy and remains highly competitive on a global scale. Poland is home to over 1,800 BPO, SSC/GBS, IT, and R&D service centers, with employment in the sector projected to reach 465,000 people this year. Foreign investors account for more than 80% of these jobs, but Polish companies are increasingly turning to business service centers to cut costs amid high expenses. Outsourcing business processes allows them to focus on strategic processes and challenges while reducing costs by more than 20%.
“BPO is currently a showcase of the Polish economy, and few people realize that this sector, focused on serving foreign companies, generates about $40 billion in pure exports,” says Dariusz Brzeziński, Managing Director of the BPO Center at Meritoros. “This export generated by companies operating in Poland, which export their services to foreign corporations, surpasses the export of industries such as furniture or even food. This is a great strength that has traditionally served global clients, but now increasingly also serves Polish companies.”
The BPO sector, or business process outsourcing, generated about 4.5% of Poland’s GDP in 2023. Until now, this market has been dominated mainly by foreign companies. According to the ABSL report (“The Business Services Sector in Poland”), at the end of Q1 2023, foreign investors accounted for 83.6% of jobs in this sector and managed 69.4% of the total number of business service centers in Poland. However, this situation is gradually changing, and Polish companies are increasingly using BPO services.
“An increasing number of domestic enterprises, following the footsteps of global leaders, are outsourcing a large part of their operations, such as accounting, HR, and other back-office processes like administration, debt collection, and IT,” says Dariusz Brzeziński.
The reasons prompting domestic companies to outsource their processes include rising employee maintenance costs, a shortage of specialists, and high energy prices, which make enterprises less competitive. Therefore, they must find new ways to reduce costs and continue to grow. Outsourcing business processes allows them to focus on strategic processes and challenges while reducing costs by more than 20%. According to Meritoros’s internal analysis, the BPO services market for Polish companies is already worth about PLN 7.3 billion.
“Outsourcing services are primarily used by large and medium-sized companies employing over 100-150 employees because this is when processes can be better optimized and the benefits, such as cost savings, become more apparent. Additionally, the issue of professionalization is important – medium and large companies require very advanced systems and specialists, and outsourcing companies, which have this kind of support, are their natural partners, allowing them to achieve benefits,” says the Managing Director of the BPO Center at Meritoros.
According to Dariusz Brzeziński, the Polish BPO services market remains very competitive on a global scale. Data from the industry association ABSL shows that there are currently over 1,800 BPO, SSC/GBS, IT, and R&D service centers operating in Poland, with projected employment in the sector reaching 465,000 people this year. Since 2019, 100,000 new jobs have been created in this sector in Poland.
“Poland is globally among the top five in terms of shared services centers and BPO locations. This is due to many factors: the competencies of the people, infrastructure, and increasingly, proximity to clients,” explains the expert. “Traditionally, a major BPO hub is India, but Poland is seen as a country that offers both relatively low costs and very good competencies. In this respect, we are winning. Therefore, European companies are very willing to use the services of Polish companies that organize these processes in Poland because the quality and added value are high, and at the same time, the costs are also at a very good level.”
