Panalpina to Open Service Centre in Prague with CzechInvest’s Assistance

8 Jul. 2013 | CzechInvest, Panalpina | The centre will employ 50 people by the end of the year at The Futurama Business Park in Prague’s Karlin district.

The Swiss company Panalpina, one of the world’s leading providers of supply chain solutions, will open a Business Service Centre (BSC) for operational processes in Prague’s Karlin district in July this year. The centre, which will focus on services for internal customers for the entire Europe and Middle East region, will employ fifty people by the end of the year and further scale up in the coming years. CzechInvest helped to mediate the project and is continuing to cooperate with Panalpina on its further growth in the Czech Republic.

“Though the sector of shared-services centres is relatively young in the Czech Republic, it has experienced a major boom in recent years,” says Petr Očko, acting CEO of CzechInvest and director of the EU Funds Section at the Ministry of Industry and Trade. “This does not involve only call centres, as there is increasing focus on far more sophisticated operations in the areas of finance, accounting, human resources, logistics and information technologies.”

The new centre in Prague is part of Panalpina’s global service centre, which means that the company will be less exposed to fluctuations of local markets in providing its services to internal customers. Besides the Czech Republic, the company also considered Poland and Hungary for its service centre, but finally decided for Prague due to the optimum combination of a qualified and available workforce and the local infrastructure.

Initial recruitment of employees has already taken place. However, Panalpina is not neglecting the professional development of its employees, who will have the opportunity to gain experience working in the international environment of a global company as well as the possibility to further learn and develop.

“CzechInvest substantially contributed to the start of the new centre’s operation,” says Robert Sgariboldi, Panalpina’s Head of Corporate Development Europe and Middle East. “We will continue to cooperate closely with the agency on our company’s development in the Czech Republic.”

With approximately 15 000 employees, the Panalpina group provides comprehensive air and ocean freight as well as logistics services on all continents. Its global network comprises 500 branches in more than 80 countries, including the Czech Republic.