Fact-based and unbiased location comparison in Asia and Europe for two shared services centers

Assignment

What is the optimal location for a new shared services center in Europe and in Asia?

Project summary

BCI conducted a fact-based and unbiased location comparison for the new shared services centers of this company in Europe and in Asia.

Our approach

The location selection approach of BCI has been applied fully in this project. After a kick-off phase in which the project profile (size of the investment, labor profile, real estate requirements, etc.) was defined for both Europe and Asia, an initial high-level longlist analysis has been conducted for the two regions. This was done at a country level. In Europe both Western and Eastern European countries were in scope and in Asia the list included developed shared services countries such as Singapore, Philippines and India as well as emerging countries.

The outcome of this first assessment was the decision to focus the site selection in Europe on Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Spain and Portugal. Based on the initial analyses it was decided that for Asia India was the best option for the company. Therefore 10 cities in India were selected to be analysed in detail in the next phase of the project.

In this next phase, using a detailed set of cost, quality and risk factors a fact-based comparison was made of the selected cities in the countries in scope. This analysis resulted in the selection of the 5 most optimal locations in Europe and Asia:

• Europe: Krakow and Warsaw (Poland), Bucharest (Romania), Sofia (Bulgaria), Lisbon (Portugal)
• India: Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai

The BCI team made visits to these locations. During the visits all data was validated and a recommendation was made to the client on which regions to visit together with the client’s team. These joint visits to Krakow, Warsaw and Lisbon and in India to Mumbai, Delhi and Pune were done with representatives from all relevant functions in the client’s organization. BCI also supported the company in the negotiations regarding the investment incentives package.

Result

Realization of new shared services centers in India and Poland.