Portugal has 450 companies working in the Shared Services Center sector generating a turnover of 1.3 billion euro witch represents about 1% of total GDP. Among these companies are well known leading brands like Cisco that has already 3 Shared Services Centers based in Portugal. After Hercules and Liberty, the company has just started a new SSC in the country. The same goes to Nokia Siemens Networks that has just inaugurated its second Global Network Solutions Center. Why? “We see Lisbon as a wonderful location to invest” said Jim Blum, Cisco’s Inside Sales Director in a Portuguese Newspaper. This statement helps to explain why a growing number of companies are choosing Portugal to invest in SSC, why the industry is showing a two digit growth over the last 4 years and is expecting to keep this track on the coming years. Portugal has a great location, installed expertise, advanced communication systems and low installation and running costs, namely, very competitive labor costs, when compared with other countries competing in this sector.
Portugal has a skilled and talented workforce and a high number of graduates, specially, in study fields like Business and Administration which enables a SCC, installed in Portugal, to have a wide range of competencies. Also, Portuguese people are known for their second language skills. A considerable percentage of Portuguese are able to hold a conversation in a language other than their mother tongue. At least 42% can hold a conversation in one foreign language and 23% can do it in, at least, two languages.
Widely known is the fact that Portugal has one of the best and more advanced communications and telephone systems in the world helping to turn the work flow in a SCC very fluid. Internet costs in Portugal are considered to be low and the band width very high.
Due to the above mencioned, Portuguese added value assets, it is not surprising why many SSC's are already based in our country. The Phone House, Adidas, Cisco, 3C, Solvay, IBM BTO, Nokia Siemens, Microsoft, Santander, Fujitsu Services, Reditus, HP, Netjets, SAP, PT Pro – just to name a few - are some examples of companies that already discovered our country’s strong arguments to host Shared Services Centers.
The Portuguese Shared Services Centre Market is growing and
the new centers recently established in Portugal prove that we remain competitive. According to the latest IBM-PLI SSC Monitor, Portugal represents 2% of the SSC market and is included in the third wave location trend.