Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Offshore Finance

So, I see that Outsource Partners International, which calls itself a "professional services firm dedicated solely to finance and accounting outsourcing," has opened a service center in Sofia, Bulgaria. It will have 125 people offering finance and accounting services in different European languages.

Offshoring of financial and accounting jobs is one of those things I keep an eye on. Wall Street's been sending a lot of its back-office jobs overseas, and of course the trend toward transferring IT and customer service jobs out of the country has been written about for years.

This press-release paragraph is a bit heavy, but read it anyway (please):
After considering a number of locations, OPI decided to open its newest facility in Bulgaria largely due to the country’s abundance of highly skilled multi-lingual professionals. Nearly 80% of the university educated population speaks at least one foreign language, while nearly 25% speak two or more foreign languages. At the same time, the country is politically and economically stable with plans underway to join the European Union in January 2007. These attributes make the new OPI facility an ideal nearshore alternative for European-based companies looking to cut costs and improve efficiency through finance and accounting outsourcing.

What's so important about all that? For one thing, it profiles the competition you might face for corporate finance jobs in the next decade, or the people you might end up managing if you're an ambitious young manager. On the one hand, everyone says demand for CPAs and financial pros is high right now; on the other hand, I hear from a lot of people who've been looking for the right job for months, if not longer. This particular center is aimed at serving European firms, but file this item away for future reference. It's just another bit about the changing landscape.

Outsource Partners International

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