The grand opening of Kemira’s Business Service Center established in the Alchemia office complex in Gdansk, Poland took place on March 4, 2014. The ceremony was attended by Kemira’s top management, the authorities of Gdansk and Pomerania, and Kemira’s business partners.
“When we started creating Business Service Center Kemira in Gdansk, we knew it would be a huge challenge and the success will be dependent on people. They make it possible to reach the business objectives. I am very happy that today, after less than a year, we already have such a big and strong team, which shows its great potential at every step. This enables us to successfully support the operations of Kemira, as well as to develop ourselves internally”, said Arkadiusz Rochowczyk, head of the Business Service Center.
Opening the Business Cervice Center: Arkadiusz Rochowczyk, Head of the Business Service Center, Pawel Adamowicz, Mayor of Gdansk, Wolfgang Büchele, President and CEO, Antti Salminen, EVP Supply Chain Management
From planning to realization
In April 2013, Kemira announced a plan to set up a Business Service Center in Poland. The center was built to enable process optimization, centralization, and improved cross-functional collaboration for transactional activities in customer service, finance, procurement and IT. Kemira aimed to improve cost effectiveness and to be able to serve all our customers in EMEA in a unified way. After a few months a large-scale recruitment process began, with the target to build a nearly 200-person Business Service Center team. Currently there are 115 people working in the center already.
The grand opening of the center, located in the multifunctional complex Alchemia in Gdansk, took place on March 4, 2014. The ceremony was attended by numerous representatives from Kemira headquarters, local authorities and business partners. Wolfgang Büchele, president and CEO of Kemira, congratulated for the quick development of the center in Gdansk and building such a strong team. Referring to his own experience, he talked about the enormous value of creating an international working environment. He also emphasized the strategic nature of the project for the entire organization.
Gdansk’s Center is the second largest site of Kemira in Europe, after the headquarters in Helsinki. The different stages of the formation of the center were brought closer by Antti Salminen, EVP Supply Chain Management at Kemira, chairing the project. He also highlighted the importance of good people, both working in the center and the ones handing over their tasks in the previous locations.
Pawel Adamowicz, Mayor of Gdansk, referred to the great importance of this investment for the entire region, which applies both to create jobs, as well as many others, including cultural values. Speeches ended with the presentation of a short film introducing the center, made by its employees.
Business Service Center from the inside
After the official part, the invited guests had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the various processes carried out in the center, the employees, as well as the modern office space. Representatives of the departments presented the scope of their responsibilities and told about the atmosphere at work. An interesting element of the event was an exhibition of employees’ photographs. Photos presented their travels to the farthest corners of the world, and described the multicultural nature of Kemira’s center in Gdansk. Nearly 25% of the people come outside of Poland.