HP building on Poland
The company is drawing up plans to build a European business services center in Poland sometime in the spring of 2005.
"We are conducting intense discussions with the Polish government concerning this investment, and we hope that they will soon end successfully for both parties," said company CEO Andrzej Dopierała. According to him, the center will employ 1,000 people over the next five years.
All this comes as Hewlett Packard Company (parent company of HP Polska) filed last week with securities regulators to take a $200 million hit ($0.04 per share) in order to cut jobs in the first half of 2005. Which jobs will be axed, and how many, has yet to be announced. In 2003, the company spent $791 million on restructuring alone. By July 31 this year, HP had spent a further $101 million on streamlining their global operation.
And last week, stockholders were relieved when the company revealed that this quarter's earnings would beat analysts' expectations after a disappointing summer.
But HP Polska seems to be bucking the overall company trend. The firm plans to invest 40-50 million in the business center project, which will offer accounting and financial services to HP's branches across Europe. And that's not all.
"We intend for this business center to serve not only the financial operations of departments belonging to HP, but also all firms interested in making use of these services. That's why the number of employees in this center could even increase with time," added Dopierała.
Speculation now focuses on where the tech giant plans to build the project. While company officials remain tight-lipped about the center's exact location, they have revealed that they plan to build in a large metropolitan area, where educated employees could be found in large supply. Unofficial reports claim that the company may be focusing on two such cities at the moment: Poznań and Wrocław.
In the year to October, HP Polska's sales revenue reached $500 million, and Dopierała hopes to continue the success.
"According to our estimates, the whole IT sector in Poland should see growth of 10 percent. Our hope is that HP can increase its revenues by approximately that much." (ISB)
"We are conducting intense discussions with the Polish government concerning this investment, and we hope that they will soon end successfully for both parties," said company CEO Andrzej Dopierała. According to him, the center will employ 1,000 people over the next five years.
All this comes as Hewlett Packard Company (parent company of HP Polska) filed last week with securities regulators to take a $200 million hit ($0.04 per share) in order to cut jobs in the first half of 2005. Which jobs will be axed, and how many, has yet to be announced. In 2003, the company spent $791 million on restructuring alone. By July 31 this year, HP had spent a further $101 million on streamlining their global operation.
And last week, stockholders were relieved when the company revealed that this quarter's earnings would beat analysts' expectations after a disappointing summer.
But HP Polska seems to be bucking the overall company trend. The firm plans to invest 40-50 million in the business center project, which will offer accounting and financial services to HP's branches across Europe. And that's not all.
"We intend for this business center to serve not only the financial operations of departments belonging to HP, but also all firms interested in making use of these services. That's why the number of employees in this center could even increase with time," added Dopierała.
Speculation now focuses on where the tech giant plans to build the project. While company officials remain tight-lipped about the center's exact location, they have revealed that they plan to build in a large metropolitan area, where educated employees could be found in large supply. Unofficial reports claim that the company may be focusing on two such cities at the moment: Poznań and Wrocław.
In the year to October, HP Polska's sales revenue reached $500 million, and Dopierała hopes to continue the success.
"According to our estimates, the whole IT sector in Poland should see growth of 10 percent. Our hope is that HP can increase its revenues by approximately that much." (ISB)
