Bombardier Selects Cebu to Locate SSC
Bombardier Transportation selects Cebu City, Philippines out of 62 destinations to house its back office operations.
Bombardier Transportation recently opened its Global Finance Shared Service Center for Accounting and Reporting in Cebu, initially with 20 employees and with a target to grow to 150 by 2014.
Heiko Kafer, Bombardier general manager and director for finance accounting and reporting, said the company has chosen to migrate its transactional activities to Cebu servicing their business units in English- speaking countries, including Asia.
Cebu was selected as one of two locations to house the SSO and its service counterpart in Cluj, Romania will service clients in European countries requiring various language capabilities, he said.
The search for a suitable location began in August. Among the shortlisted countries included Chinea in India and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
“Cebu was chosen among the 62 cities because in Cebu there is an availability of highly qualified accounting staff at competitive cost, who are used to a shared service mentality so we can ensure excellent delivery of services and support for our business for the worldwide market,” explained Olivier Guitton, the company's vice president for Finance Shared Services, Accounting and Reporting.
Guitton expressed confidence in the sustainability and success of Bombardier's financial operations here given Cebu's “excellent reputation” in the global outsourcing and offshore industry.
The presence of Bombardier Transportation in the country started in 1996 as the company landed contract for the signaling system of the Metro Railway Transit (MRT) and now they are targeting several projects in Manila which includes the Line 8 project which runs from North Avenue to the east of Manila.
