Wiktor Doktór: BPO industry is booming across Europe and Trizma was one of the first independent call center providers in Serbia. Can you share some information how did the outsourcing industry changed within last 15 years in Serbia, please?
Marko Kovačević: Please let me first start with congratulating Pro Progressio on its outstanding work in the area of BPO and its value proposition. You have clearly shown that dedication to promotion of the quality of service and uniqueness of the markets in Europe are your passion which is helping and supporting work of all of us in BPO and BPS industry.
Coming to Serbian Outsourcing market, we can share that last 5 years especially, the Outsourcing market has started developing rapidly. Mostly in the areas of BPO, Software development, Application Development and IT specialized support. The market started slow before 15 years ago and it was primarily back office and call centre. We are very happy with developments now since we are going as a market to added value services which can keep competitiveness for the future.
Wiktor Doktór: So now we are in 2016 and what is the current size of the BPO industry in Serbia?
Marko Kovačević: The market is still growing and it still didn’t reach its full potential. It is much smaller than Poland of course. We can roughly estimate that we have around 25-35 established companies today working in BPO/ITO/SSC area. Approximate number of people employed in the industry is around 6.500 – 7.000 people. They are predominantly located in two cities Novi Sad and Belgrade.
Wiktor Doktór: As we know clients for outsourcing services are coming from various directions. How is it with Serbia? Where are the most of the clients coming from? Is it US or perhaps Europe or maybe it is Serbia itself?
Marko Kovačević: This is a very good question. We have seen lately that demography has been changing. The trend started with big US multinational companies but has moved to European multinational companies as well, especially lately. Serbian own market still has a lot of potential to develop and we can expect it to happen in next several years. We are more now in position of being a destination for international partners than local partners’ choice for BPO and BPS services.
Wiktor Doktór: What are the most popular services supported from Serbia?
Marko Kovačević: We still do not have a comprehensive break down of the services because industry is developing. What we can share, based on our knowledge, I would like to underline we did not run a comprehensive research, that today there will be 3 biggest groups of services followed by others:
- Customer Care 35%,
- IT Services 30%,
- Software development 20%,
- Data Analytics 5%,
- Finance and Accounting 5%,
- Other services 5%.
Looking in to current trends we can see that those numbers can realign to added value service in next several years.
Wiktor Doktór: As we know one of the major challenges for the outsourcing industry is to get qualified human resources. How is it in Serbia? Is it difficult to get the right resources? How long does it take to recruit right people and what is the average monthly salary level when we talk about Junior and Senior Specialists?
Marko Kovačević: Human capital in Serbia is well distributed and it has a clear multilingual skills and high level of education. Our market is competitive since it is a new destination for outsourcing services. We have entered as one of the last comers which has given us the opportunity to take lessons learned from other markets and to try to define the services offering and specific industries for future development. Salary range is still competitive in the Eastern European ranges. Unfortunately, we cannot share the salary ranges at this stage since I represent the company and we have NDA’s, never the less general market inputs in the area of salaries can be found online.
Wiktor Doktór: If you were to say Serbia’s as three main values as the BPO Services Location what would they be?
Marko Kovačević: The main three would be:
- Human Capital with multilingual skills,
- Human capital with IT skills,
- Problem slowing and continuous improvement way of thinking.
Wiktor Doktór: Thank you
Marko Kovačević: Thank you Wiktor and we wish Pro Progressio to continue its important mission.
Pro Progressio Business Talks is the cycle of interviews with global key managers. Interviews are run by Wiktor Doktór, the CEO of Pro Progressio Foundation. In Pro Progressio Business Talks there are covered current business trends, analysis of business cases, hits and tips as well as discussions concerning process development of European and Global companies.
About Marko Kovačević:
CEO of Trizma, has 15 years of experience in areas of international relations, consulting, marketing, business development and business process services. After graduating Law on Belgrade University he has completed his MIB at the Grenoble Ecole de Management and Executive Leadership Education on Harvard Business School. Marko also holds NLP Master Certificate.
Prior of becoming CEO of Trizma in 2012 he has served in management and executive capacities in Atlantic Council of Serbia, Megatrend University, Telenor, Virtuoni, Dupont Carter and Insomnia Serbia.
About Trizma:
Trizma was founded in Belgrade in 2002 as the first independent Contact Center Outsourcer in Serbia. In 2011 Trizma transformed itself into a full Business Process Outsourcing and Technology Outsourcing (BPTO) provider and in 2016 to a Business Process Service provider (BPS). More about Trizma can be found at http://www.trizma.com.
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