In a global world, multinational companies have learned that to extract maximum efficiencies they need to bring group shared services under one roof. Companies such as GM, IBM and Hewlett Packard have all chosen Barcelona for their European shared service centre (SSC) operations.

That’s not surprising. Barcelona is ranked one of the top six cities in Europe for setting up a business venture, according to European Cities Monitor 2003, the latest annual report by real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker. With its strong economy, skilled and multilingual workforce, and highly competitive cost structures, Barcelona has become the perfect location for any SSC.

Capital of the Spanish province of Catalonia, Barcelona is at the heart of a hinterland with 17 million inhabitants that stretches from Valencia to Zaragoza, Palma de Mallorca to Toulouse and Montpellier across the French border. During the past three years the city’s gross domestic product and GDP per capita has far outshone the Euro-15 average.

Diversified and dynamic, Barcelona’s economy is now service-led. While more than 80% of the employed population work in services, metropolitan Barcelona is also Europe’s fifth largest industrial base. Businesses there are more productive than those in other areas of Spain: Barcelona represents 22% of all Spanish exports and 20% of all its FDI, yet its population makes up just 3.7% of the national total. Companies are more competitive because of the added value they build into products and services – essential in the knowledge and know-how sectors.

Barcelona has forged a reputation for activities related to information and telecommunications technologies. As managers of SSC back-up services for multinational businesses know, this is the key to providing shared services.

Barcelona’s SSCs matter

SSCs provide solutions for a range of strategic services, ranging from corporate services to research and development, through general administrative support, customer support, product knowledge and strategic operations, among others.

Examples of blue-chip company SSC operations in Barcelona include:

• Bayer, which set up an accounting services centre for many of its European divisions;
• General Electric, which brought together eight divisions for Spain and Europe in the city’s 22@bcn high-tech activities district and its world R&D centre for the power control division;
• Hewlett Packard, which installed its joint SSC for Europe, the Middle East and Africa here, plus a new world centre of excellence;
• BM, which recently established a new banking services centre for EMEA and also has a world centre for advanced IT studies.

Agilent, Accenture, Avis and Citibank have all set up strategic corporate and customer care service centres for their EMEA operations in the city.

The world’s choice

According to Barcelona’s deputy mayor and councillor for economic promotion, Jordi Portabella: “This city is an ideal location for SSC business activity because of our well-qualified human capital, the availability of highly competitive and quality office space, and because of the unique quality of life the city offers, meaning talent wants to live here.”

Barcelona is a hotbed of innovation, design and creativity, with colours, sounds and Mediterranean light that inspire businesses and employees. It’s a unique location, where the ultra-modern blends with the traditional. And it is a melting pot of ideas and peoples, the essence of quality urban living. The brightest young minds want to live in and experience Barcelona.

All this helps to create the right sort of environment for knowledge transfer, which is the basis of today’s knowledge societies. And it is this atmosphere that SSCs are seeking.

According to European Cities Monitor 2003, Barcelona’s labour costs and availability are particularly good, as are the availability and value of office space; accessibility to markets and customers; entrepreneurial climate; urban and inter-urban transport systems; and, above all, quality of life. Barcelona is the city that has progressed most in recent years, says the study.

But it is the real experience of managers such as Jorge Carulla, marketing manager for holiday website e-Dreams, that count. He knows Barcelona is the place to be. “Barcelona has a number of factors in its favour that facilitated the decision to locate our head office here – among them the quality of life it offers, its cost of living that is relatively low, its internet infrastructure and excellent connections and the existence of a large international community. Not to mention the possibility of attracting qualified professionals from abroad. It’s an open, cosmopolitan city, and the Barcelona ‘brand’ is a very distinctive one,” says Mr Carulla.

A city on the move

And the future is looking even brighter for Barcelona: consultancy Ernst&Young rates the metropolitan region as the third-highest in the EU to attract investment projects from multinational companies, while Cambridge Econometrics, a consultancy, ranks Barcelona as the sixth European city in terms of growth potential for 2001-2006.

Barcelona has come on in leaps and bounds over the past decade. It is currently carrying out some of the biggest development projects in Europe. Just a 10-minute bike ride from the city beaches and the heart of town, much of the inner-city Poblenou area is being developed to create a 3.2 million m2 lifestyle-cum-technology zone called 22@. This area will be home to media, marketing and other service-related activities such as SSCs.

GM, T-Systems, and DiamondCluster are setting up shared service operations in Barcelona, attracted by the high-tech offices and quality urban setting. Nearby, city authorities have developed a brownfield site into a stunning showcase for how cities can look in the 21st century. The so-called Forum area, with high-tech convention centres and auditoriums, a marina port, and even a water treatment plant, has been used to stage the Universal Forum of Cultures Barcelona 2004, a major event dealing with cultural diversity, the conditions for peace and sustainability. It is a prime example of what Barcelona is about and what it wants to be.

To the west, the city is undertaking an ambitious project to make it southern Europe’s principal logistics and distribution zone, especially for goods coming from South America and China. The so-called Delta Plan is a 230-hectare project involving the enlargement of Barcelona Airport so it can deal with 40 million passengers a year and much more cargo, and a huge extension to the Port of Barcelona and the specialist ZAL logistics zone.

In the north east of the city, the blueprints for the Sagrera high-speed railway station have been unveiled. It will be the central station for the high-speed railway due to run from the French border to Barcelona and on to Madrid.

SSCs need highly connected cities, and Barcelona boasts excellent external and internal communications. The airport is one of the fastest growing hubs in Europe, while motorway and rail links are both swift and efficient. Inside the city there’s a highly effective network of bus, tramway and underground systems. Barcelona is, of course, wired up with fibre optics.

Multinationals undoubtedly factor in all this infrastructure when considering where to set up a SSC, just as they do with the local labour cost structures.

But Barcelona’s ambition and go-getting spirit have helped it differentiate itself from other cities that want to attract inward investment. It is often the quality of the city’s human resources and its unique Mediterranean style of life that tip location decisions in Barcelona’s favour.

“Avis selected Barcelona after carefully weighing up 36 cities in 12 European countries. Our decision to locate here was based on Barcelona’s cosmopolitan and international outlook, its quality of life and its accessibility,” says Josephine Garcia, HR & training manager for Avis in Barcelona.

According to Cushman & Wakefield, Barcelona enjoys the best quality of life in Europe. It is a magnet for businesses and individuals because of its climate, stimulating cultural, leisure, entertainment and gastronomic environment, international schools, varied and competitive housing supply and a public health service that is modern and available to all – adding up to a quality lifestyle at an affordable cost.

Barcelona is a multilingual, multicultural city, where about 150 different nationalities live easily together. The city’s universities offer more than 300 different degrees, while its business schools – which include leading MBA programmes at IESE, ESADE and the University of Chicago’s only European school – supply businesses with top-grade graduates and future leaders. Barcelona is also one of the favourite destinations for international exchange students.

Business-wise council

Barcelona’s city council understands what business needs, which is why it set up Barcelona Business, an innovative information and support service for businesses and professionals who are considering the city as a location for their activities. A dedicated and multi-lingual staff offers quick and efficient logistical back-up, project analysis and assessment, and business advice on identifying research opportunities, locating suppliers, finding premises and regulations and legal procedures.

Barcelona Business is a one-stop service that could help your business develop crucial shared services operations in the heart of one of Europe’s most exciting metropolises. Visit www.barcelonabusiness.com