Although the majority of modern office stock is concentrated in Poland’s largest metropolitan areas, companies are increasingly looking beyond the core markets for office space Cushman & Wakefield has prepared a report on 12 alternative locations for BSS tenants.
Cushman & Wakefield’s report looks at the following cities: Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Bielsko-Biała, Częstochowa, Elbląg, Kielce, Olsztyn, Opole, Radom, Rzeszów, Toruń and Zielona Góra. It includes key market data and economic indicators for each city, and information on vacant space volumes.
According to ABSL’s report “Business Services Sector in Poland 2019”, around 10% of the entire headcount in the shared services sector work in alternative locations to Poland’s nine largest office markets.
“The growth of these locations has been driven, among other things, by the availability of skilled labour, a relatively large pool of students and graduates, lower operating costs and improving transport connections between the surveyed markets and key transportation hubs,” says Krzysztof Misiak, Head of Cushman & Wakefield Poland.
The firm’s analysis has revealed that the combined office stock of those 12 cities amounts to nearly 703,000 sqm across 200 office buildings. This stock includes both modern office buildings and tenement houses repurposed for office use. Close to 93,000 sqm is currently under construction and another 295,000 sqm is likely to be delivered to the market in the next five years. Most projects are being developed by local companies.
“Since 2012, or the day on which Pro Progressio began supporting the BSS growth in Poland, we have being talking about the great potential of Poland’s regional cities. Today, when each major city has BPO/SSC locations, the growth of the business services sector in such cities as Białystok, Toruń, Radom, Olsztyn, Bydgoszcz, Opole, Częstochowa, and Kielce is only natural. We anticipate that these cities will be the first to see more operational centres established for BSS companies already present in Poland and some of them will be the first locations for Polish and overseas BPO/SSC organisations. Lower costs, good logistics and relatively limited competition are the strengths of the regional cities for which I keep my fingers crossed,” says Wiktor Doktór, President of Pro Progressio.
Poland leads the way across the region for shared services
Cushman & Wakefield’s experts anticipate that regional cities will attract new tenants whose numbers will depend, among other things, on available office stock, access to skilled labour and investment assistance provided by individual cities.
“Cushman & Wakefield believes that the growth of the shared services sector is likely to accelerate in the coming years as most developed economies enter into an economic slowdown or recession caused by the global pandemic. Poland leads the way across the region for shared services and is expected to remain a sought-after location by companies looking for savings by relocating some processes to lower-cost locations,” says Jan Szulborski, Senior Consultant, Cushman & Wakefield.
