2012 Katowice Summit Business Conference

With a sizeable educated population, a growing economy, and a reliable transport and energy infrastructure, Poland is a popular nearshoring destination for companies in the EU.  The conveniently located city of Katowice has been determined to be an attractive location for foreign direct investment and various sectors outsourcing.

Katowice offers a pool of IT and business management talent and actual innovation possibilities.  With new government-supported development initiatives including infrastructure and green technology projects, the potential for information technology outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) services is promising.  Within Katowice there exists a broad pool of talent/intellectual capital with over 25 higher education institutions.

The 2012 Katowice Summit business conference took place on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at the Polish Consulate in New York City, New York, USA. For those interested in learning about the Silesia region of Poland, visit the Katowice Summit 2012 website to view videos from the event and to read more about the information provided.  Jolanta Jaworska and Mariusz Tomaka both spoke at the event on the advantages of outsourcing in Poland.

According to Jolanta Jaworska (IBM, ABSL), who is responsible for IBM cooperation with the local government and public administration in areas of business development support, investment policy, social policy and projects in Global Delivery Centers in Poland and CEE, the country has "many advantages, as Poland has a great number of highly-skilled people who are crucial for this kind of business.” Ms. Jaworksa is also a member of the Association of Business Service Leaders in Poland (ABSL), a partner of Katowice Summit 2012.

Mariusz Tomaka, Director of the U.S.-Polish Trade Council and CEO at DisplayLink, also commented on the region. “There’s a lot of advantages [in the Silesia region] like resources, well-organized office space, good infrastructure of the area, but what I would like to emphasize is– many popular outsourcing destinations today represent a low level of services. In Poland, we have very well-educated staff, able to manage these offices. Poland can be a hub to which the high-level outsourcing services can be directed, and then distributed evenly throughout the globe.”