November 1st, 2022
JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel
ABSL invites you to the 10th Annual Conference, the largest event for Romanian Business Services Industry that brings together around 600 professionals keen to find answers to current concerns, discover the latest trends for a new era of business, and network.
Lots of changes have happened since our last offline conference: the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia – Ukraine war, inflation, the loom of economic crisis, all these creating an uncertainty that might have an influence on the business sector too.
We know the future is unpredictable; both in life and in business. But we can still influence it, as the choices we make, the decisions we take have a great impact on what will happen next. What we do today creates the bridge towards tomorrow. And in business services industry, that is exactly what ABSL has been doing for the past 10 years: building bridges to the future through strong partnerships and well-informed decisions. We have enhanced dialogue and collaboration within the business services sector, engaged with authorities and other stakeholders, and promoted Romania as one of the most attractive locations for business services. We have created an amazing community, driving the growth of the business service industry.
At this conference, we are celebrating 10 years of building bridges to the future. We are interested in what comes next: exciting paths towards added value, digital transformations that will upgrade skills and mindset, game changing makeovers, an innovative future different from what we imagine or not. We are interested in what comes next regarding Romania and Romanian business industry, what we can do to remain an important player in the field.
Join us in celebrating our core values, our people, and all the amazing things that are yet to come.
In this report published jointly by ABSL and PwC we are analysing the perspectives and challenges of the business services sector in Romania, regarding mainly the development of labour market, salaries/benefits, and the office market.
What exactly is ESG from a practical point of view? You will find out how to discuss ESG with various stakeholders and will have a better understanding of sustainability in the Skanska way. We will discuss how to:
Step into the next level of digital innovation through self-service for finance professionals.
Still want to or need to learn a new foreign language? If you think that it’s hard or that you don’t have the time, you might be right. Looking for that miraculous tool or way to do it? Well, unfortunately there is no shortcut. It’s just like going to the gym. You either do it or you don’t. There’s no trying. But luckily, @Eucom we can give you some tips on how to. Join us and it might come in hand what we’re about to share with you.
Businesses set to succeed in the future can deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time. This poses a challenge to businesses, with a seamless omnichannel strategy increasingly essential for delivering for a digital-first consumer.
There is indeed a lot going on right now. Before we´ve even have time to contend with the biggest pandemic in a century, a large-scale war breaks out around the corner. At the same time, the climate crisis looms ever larger.
The world has been transformed from comprehensible to incomprehensible for many businesses. Like the subject of an old Polaroid the image of a new reality is slowly emerging. It is indeed a new world … and it offers a huge Momentum for renewal and change.
Say hello to the age of Innovation!
Around the world, organizations have adopted hybrid work policies, but haven’t changed their offices to support the new realities of hybrid work. Workplaces will need to earn people’s commute by meeting a new set of needs: support hybrid work, establish connections, create a sense of belonging and promote wellbeing — all of which suffered during the pandemic. Rather than basing office design on the need to fit more people into less space, the workplace should draw inspiration from a new source that is less about efficiency and more about humanity — the vibrant communities in which we live. Join us in a conversation around how the office can create the same energy and connection people feel sitting in a sidewalk cafe or the same level of solitude they experience in their library or the privacy of their own home.
Employers need to meet today’s challenges in the actual context that disturbs the wellbeing of employees. How do external factors affect the professional level in Romania? What means to be top of the class when we talk about wellbeing benefits and how to restore the wellbeing of the employees.
While we are advocates for always looking forward, there are crucial insights to be gained from past experiences. Evaluating previous trends is the first step to a more straightforward path to success and a shorter learning curve, especially while facing unconventional emerging needs from our clients. During this session we’ll look back and analyze the way the real estate office market evolved in the past 10 years, while also making predictions on how the next 10 years will unfold. We will discuss tenants’ ever changing and evolving requirements and we will provide you with the tools to make informed choices according to the current and future circumstances. We will go on a journey within our region and try to understand the trends and how Romania has evolved and will continue to evolve in the coming years compared to our neighbors, in order to ultimately comprehend if we are ready for the future.
We’ve been living through the greatest workplace disruption in generations and the level of volatility will not slow down soon. What will change is how variable that disruption becomes. Leaders need to learn how to thrive in a period of disruption that plays out unevenly across their organizations. HR executives need to be aware of the underlying trends that will shape the workplace of the future and be prepared to tackle inherent legal challenges. Globalization of work, the war on talent, social protection of workers, the migration towards flexible hierarchy systems and alternative remuneration models are some of the topics we will address during our presentation.
Redefining remote and hybrid work strategy is one of the trends shaping the workplace in 2023. Hybrid work has been and continues to take a front-row seat in conversations about workplace future and people engagement. The common denominator is flexibility and how flexible working offers companies a competitive advantage. While some employees prefer remote work and others prefer hybrid, in-office work, or a combination of the two, what employees aspire to is flexibility and the possibility of choosing what best fits their needs.
Practical advice regarding improvement of employee engagement and superior business outcomes through courageous leadership and cultural and behavioural change in the organization.
A practical approach to hybrid onboarding with instant impact on increasing retention and decreasing time to productivity.
With so many learning products and services at hand, many companies still encounter skill gaps. Moreover, the covid-19 crisis changed how organizations invest in their employees even more and required new ways of L&D approaching. We have conducted an inquiry among our clients in which we discussed how their learning solutions have changed after the pandemic. The results show that sporadic training activities are no longer a choice since the companies are more focused on the creation and resilience of a sustainable learning ecosystem. We will explore some new long-term solutions and tools that create a greater impact on L&D activity in the new way of working.
At the centre of our Future of Work model stands the feedback of our employees. The result? A flexible framework where business leaders & teams can choose their preferred set-up: hybrid; remote or in office.
While running this model on the ground, important lessons emerged – some are in line with what we already know from the market, some are different. Let`s get together for a condensed sharing session on the topic.
Who are our Key Employees and more specifically Why? We will try to define values into criteria, in order to better understand what is important to you and how is that obvious to Others. We will separate the Pains into 3 concepts: Retaining, Engaging and Key People. The focus will be on Key People upon understanding Your Needs. You might consider « A People » or « A Positions ». Both strategies are good, just need to be coherent within practice. There are huge benefits and some tricky risks that might impact our intentions to drive results within the organisation.
The SG GSC Talent Management Program takes on the mission to attract and develop the Leaders of tomorrow at all levels within the Network, Leaders who will shape and drive the SG GSC Romania Strategy. The presentation consists of the Talent Management Program Overview and the Talent Management Program key results.
While most of the Upskilling programs decide to act on knowledge trainings as their key to success, we decided to add to this principle 2 ingredients, that should boost engagement rates, grow mindset, and create a more dedicated process improvement culture. With this, using local volunteering communities, we already benefit from people interest, involvement, and dedication, so in this case redirecting our automation improvements to their projects sounds like a fair trade.
Using local projects, we are able to activate passive digital awareness, through updating our employees on the automations that are done for the processes that they already use. Having a strategy that has “Personal experience” as its core – we were able to boost knowledge adoption and its adoption further into Global Business Processes.
Our client was facing typical issues of an emerging shared service center – unclear vision, need of scope expansion and appetite for transformation lacking leadership support. We’ve helped our client define a clear vision, strategy and action plan to transform into a Center office and a valuable partner to business – a real peer instead of a mere low-cost transactional service provider. Join us to see how they’ve managed to kick-off their transformation journey, overcome typical obstacles and gain leadership support to bring their GBS to the next level.
The future of work holds the key of driving organizational innovation and changes the existing way of working. In many cases, the Global Business Services (GBS) or Shared Services organizations are the catalyst in driving change, starting from core processes. During the presentation we will discuss about the transformative potential of GBS organizations with focus on:
Generation 2 Automation is the direction where enterprise organizations are moving. Wider technologies are involved, generating larger benefits which can finance digital transformations. EY ASpace is AI Platform that can empower enterprises to rapidly adopt AI, resulting in faster, smarter, and more future ready businesses.
Optimizing support department services towards our employee through implementing innovative tech solutions under the format of a common online platform for all HR, payroll, inventory, IT equipment topics.
More than once, we have seen discussions around scope expansion in GBSs focusing mostly on numbers – business cases quantifying the impact of the anticipated changes, complex formulae incorporating all potential costs and savings, hoping for that desired net positive result. While a positive business case is, in most cases, a key factor for a setup or expansion decision, when implementation comes about everyone realizes there are other, equally important matters that should have been considered in preparation of the actual migrations. We have seen higher rates of success in GBSs that sought to understand, factor in and proactively address key stakeholders’ concerns (explicit or not). These were based on maturity assessments conducted to understand the starting position as well as desired evolution in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and quality on five key pillars- Strategy, Operations, Processes, People and IT. Such assessments and the resulting action items, when factored in a scope extension discussion, would address stakeholders’ concerns, increase visibility over the GBS operations profile and maturity and facilitate the decision.
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Dr Kjell A. Nordström is the interpreter of the new business world. His dynamic style has made him a highly appreciated speaker, and he has given keynote presentations in over 100 countries. He suggests that our time is unique. We are probably at the beginning – not even the middle – of the fastest business model transformation since the 1850s.
Dr Nordström has 25 years’ experience working with multinational companies and has served as an adviser and consultant to several large multinationals around the world. He holds a doctoral degree in International Business from the Stockholm School of Economics. His research and consulting focus on the areas of corporate strategy, multinational corporations, and globalization.
Kjell A. Nordström has published six books and numerous articles on the internationalization process of firms. His book Funky Business (co-authored with Jonas Ridderstråle) sold more than 300,000 copies and has been featured on CNN and CNBC, as well as in numerous magazines and newspapers. His latest book Momentum, (co-authored with Per Schlingmann), which is a sequel of the book Corona Express (2021), describes how the climate change, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine is changing our societies, our businesses and ourselves. In the book he describes new keys to success and introduces a model for seizing the opportunities and developing your leadership in our current paradigm shift. Last but not least, he shows how these momentous, simultaneous events are spawning new frameworks for the world as we have known it. The book will soon be released in English.
In the international bestseller Urban Express, authors Kjell A. Nordström and Per Schlingmann identified expanding cities and women as the key agents of change in our time. But the pandemic has triggered an array of forces which will change the rules of the game for individuals, companies, and society as a whole. Which of these changes will last and which will fade away as the pandemic recedes? And how can we make the most of the opportunities which arise?
Kjell A. Nordström is an extremely sought-after lecturer. He is not your typical business guru – his revolutionary message is delivered in a revolutionary way. Besides public speaking, Kjell A. Nordström is also active as an investor and entrepreneur and runs a prominent Shakespeare theatre.
Corporate Sales Director – Subscriptions Division, Reteaua de Sanatate REGINA MARIA
Experienced Director of Corporate Sales with a demonstrated history of working in the hospital & health care industry, Georgiana joined REGINA MARIA in 2016. Skilled in Negotiation and Business Planning, for the past 3 years she focused on development of projects that improve the wellbeing of the employees.
Director Management Consulting, PwC Romania
In his more than 20 years as a management consultant, Radu has worked on several share service center set-up, operating model transformations, process improvement, merger and carve-out engagements, with local and international footprint.
Associate Partner | Head of Intelligent Automation CoE, EY Romania
Marius Antonie is leading the EY Center of Excellence for Intelligent Automation in Bucharest; he has diploma of Computer Science from Politehnica University of Bucharest. Marius has a wide technical experience of more than 20 years in large implementations of projects of systems architecture & integrations or RPA delivery running Hyper-automation programs for clients in diverse domains like: Telecommunications, Consumer & Products, Energy or Financial Services.
ITSM Process & Technology Manager, Stefanini EMEA
Adrian is EMEA ITSM Process & Technology Manager at Stefanini. Having worked for businesses in almost every industry, he fully understands multiple frameworks and how different systems and technologies are connected. During his 10 years at Stefanini, Adrian has demonstrated a deep commitment to delivering successful outcomes for his clients and ensuring true value can be realized.
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Assurance Director, PwC
BI Manager Taskforce, Majorel Romania
With more than 15 years in the BPO industry, following a 360-development plan from customer support to operations manager, workforce management and BI department, one may say I’ve seen them all, but I am far from that. I keep learning every day from all my colleagues and departments I collaborate with: IT, HR, financial and most important from my boss and mentor, our CEO. Making the right choices within our company, for our team members and ourselves is the biggest challenge so far. With experience, vision, hard work and a competitive spirit, I am facing all that comes my way from the constantly changing future.
Director Intelligent Automation, AECOM
Cristina Duta is the Intelligent Automation Director at AECOM, with an extensive experience in technology, consulting, intelligent automation, thought leadership. She holds an MSc and a PhD in Computer Science and capitalizes on more than 12 years of experience in software development and Intelligent Automation, delivering significant Digital Transformation programs successfully across Telecom, Life Science, Banking and Manufacturing companies. In her current global role, Cristina focuses on championing an Automation First enterprise by extending, enriching and empowering the people to have a digital mindset for the future of work. She is a visionary and regularly shares her knowledge at global and industry-led events focused on Digital Transformation, Innovation and Intelligent Automation.
Senior HR Manager, Booking Holdings Romania
Corina Făurescu has more than 12 years of experience in Human Resources in fast-growing technology companies. Passionate about driving transformational change and putting forward the people's agenda, she believes the role of HR is to help empower employees to be successful, build a rewarding employee experience and foster a human-centered culture of leadership. Corina joined Booking Holdings Romania on April 1, 2022 and she is focused on supporting the establishment and scaling up the center from a people and talent perspective.
Key Client Director, JLL Romania
Maria is currently offering office leasing consultancy services for occupiers and landlords and providing mentorship and training to young consultants by putting together multidisciplinary teams in order to answer the diversifying needs of customers. Maria has an outstanding track record in brokerage and management, coordinating over 60 transactions and leasing of more than 300,000 sq m in her career. In her previous role, Maria was appointed as Account Manager for all Vodafone Real Estate transactions.
Learning Communication Ambassador, Talent Collection
Soon to be finishing Ph.D. in Communication Sciences, Alexandra Gherguț-Babii is a seasoned L&D professional with an excellent connection to the business environment and to the academic world teaching her students different subjects related to Communication and Psychology. On top of her L&D support, in Talent Collection Alexandra fulfils projects related to Social Media Marketing, content writing, event planning, and PR strategy implementation. She feels she was born to create meaningful content and she is fascinated by words' effect and their magic to connect people. She equally helps in organizing different projects for humanitarian causes and in supporting youngsters in extracurricular activities.
Director of Business Services, Euromaster Tyre & Services Romania
Over 20 years career with strong track record in general management and performance, delivering business growth and innovation, software and cloud platforms engineering and support, managed services, driving digitalization, business process simplification, technology and cultural changes leading to increased employee morale, customer satisfaction and major financial optimizations.
Senior Manager in the Consulting practice, Deloitte Czech Republic
Tomas is a Senior Manager in the Consulting practice at Deloitte Czech Republic with 10 years of professional experience. He is part of the Finance & Performance team focusing on the shared services industry (SSC/GBS), process redesign and optimization, change management, transformation of finance departments and other CFO areas. He is also focusing on technology led process automation, application design and GBS customer experience.
Project Director, Skanska Commercial Development Business Unit in CEE
Andrei Ivan is an experienced professional in commercial development and sustainability. During the last years, he successfully contributed to driving sustainability in our business unit and contributed even more towards Skanska’s mission to build for a better society. He truly believes that our industry role is crucial for the development of green cities and a sustainable future. Either he supported the development of the Skanska Group sustainability strategy, contributed to the review of health and safety standards, or he promoted innovations and digital solutions, Andrei has an increased focus on sustainable solutions, bringing added value to our projects and our customers. He believes that achieving any targets is possible as a common effort of the team and that is why he appreciates the expertise that every colleague brings on in the ongoing projects. He is a team player and he always enjoyed working with diverse teams.
Employee Experience & Talent Strategist, Accenture Romania
I call myself an HR “shape shifter”, as I transitioned most HR areas & various industries during the past 10 years. My current role is focused on creating a positive employee experience for my colleagues in Accenture Romania, covering behavioral change, performance culture, inclusion and wellbeing. Besides my formal job, I am the co-founder of HR Hub, the biggest community in Romania for HR professionals with over 13.000 members.
L&D Manager, Societe Generale Global Solution Centre
Florin holds a master’s degree in Human Resources and a solid background in developing leadership teams across various industries, bringing leverage to organizations in enhancing their internal culture and maximize their return on investment on people development strategies. He is leading the Learning & Development Department within SG GSC RO, in charge with the learning strategy alignment to the organisation’s People Strategy. His team is actively supporting the Ready-Now Organization by integrating best-in-class services with learning solutions to assist the organisation’s human capital development.
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CEO, Temps HR
Iuliana is the CEO and shareholder of TempsHR, a Romanian capital HR company, one of the top national players. For the last 16 years she is a true passionate of HR consultancy, consolidating understanding of different industry drivers and reinforcing ways to reveal impact of strategic HR within business development. This has been an ongoing process of building expertise and market understanding in order to advise clients to optimize planning and relate investments to actual resources.
Partner, Zamfirescu Racoți Vasile & Partners
Cătălin Micu has an unsurpassed practice in employment law with an exceptional reputation for advising clients on all aspects of individual and collective labour law. Having thorough and solid knowledge of the Romanian corporate regulations, Cătălin is popular among major domestic and international corporations for advice on agreements negotiation, implementation of sophisticated management organization systems, important business transfers, corporate restructurings and collective bargaining agreements. During 2014 Cătălin successfully coordinated the first ad integrum reorganization in Romania for a bank, by the means of collective dismissal integrated in a sophisticated mechanism of repositioning the human resources on a new jobs’ structure approved by the shareholders of the bank. Cătălin has also a notable reputation for advising on medical law and commercial law matters, acting for a client roster encompassing companies acting in a variety of industry sectors.
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People & Organisation Consulting Director, PwC
Head of Finance Shared Service Center of Societe Generale Global Solution Centre
Vincent Orcin is the Head of Finance Shared Service Center of Societe Generale Global Solution Centre, handling a large span of activities pertaining to 4 value chains: Procure to Pay, Accounting (General, Consolidation), Regulatory & Prudential, Financial Performance & Analysis. Vincent is coming with an extensive 15+ years of experience spent across various financial, operational and risk management functions. He has held different managerial roles within Societe Generale Corporate Investment Banking, notably on Over-The-Counter (OTC) Derivates Collateral Department.
Co - Founder, CODE OF TALENT
Sorin Paun is Co-founder at Code of Talent. He relies on over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, multinational companies and consulting. He now leads projects in organizational development, with an impact both at the level of processes and systems and at the level of skills and competences.
He is passionate about learning design, and he believes in the power of evolution generated by microlearning. For more than 2 years he is generating content for engaging micro-learning journeys being involved in more than 400 digital development projects with more than 100 multinational companies.
Senior Manager in the Consulting practice, Deloitte Romania
Oana is a Senior Manager in the Consulting Practice at Deloitte Romania with more the 13 years of consulting experience.
She is part of the Operations Transformation team focusing on: Operational Excellence/ Business Process Re-engineering specialized in Lean Management methodology, organizational redesign, companies restructuring, finance transformation, change and project management.
Sales Director for Central, Eastern & Northern Europe, Steelcase
As Sales Director for Central, Eastern & Northern Europe at Steelcase, Ilinca helps people do their best work by creating places that work better. She leverages applied research and takes a user-centered approach to understand the way people work and learn and the goals their organization are trying to achieve.
Partner, PwC
Francesca is a Partner within the Assurance Department of PwC Romania and joined the company in 2000. With over 25 years in audit practice and a high interest in watching the way the business environment evolves, Francesca assisted, over the years, PwC’s large international and local clients in different industries such as retail, oil&gas, tobacco in major audits performed under the International Standards of Accounting.
She also contributes to the constant dialogue and collaboration among the companies of the business services sector in her role as a Vice President of the Association of Business Services Leaders in Romania (ABSL).
Also, Francesca is interested in the field of education, thus she continued to consolidate her career and became an International Certified Coach (ICF) in 2020. She is also a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in the United Kingdom and the Romanian Chamber of Financial Auditors (CAFR)
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Director of AI & RPA, EY India
Director of Marketing Automation Development & Execution, HP Inc.
Started career in 2007 as part of web-site maintenance, mainly web development job. Moving into Digital Marketing Manager for Russian Speaking Countries, Leading Global Content Operations, Demand Management Operations, etc. After 15 years, I am Director for Global Marketing Automation Development & Execution as part of Marketing Services Organization in HP Inc.
COO, Eucom
I am a 40-year-old proud father of 9 years old kid.
I come from a mixed family, so I am half Romanian and half Slovakian.
I am most passionate about processes and operations, and always have enjoyed – both in personal and professional life – looking at things from a large perspective. I like to play with ideas, test and try them and learn by doing and failing. I also enjoy the most being around other people and interacting with them.
Event Partners come to ABSL 10th Annual Conference to display their latest products and services and to explore business opportunities. Being a partner of our conference will give you the opportunity to:
If your company is part of ABSL, you can benefit of discounted partnership packages.
*Tickets are limited according to the hall capacity & first come, first served basis
Check here the membership type of your company: https://www.absl.ro/members/
Discuss with your company representative about participation and register afterwards.
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