Bombardier Transportation, the global giant that builds planes and trains, has chosen to open its finance center in Cebu, the progressive resort city in central Philippines, to service the multinational company’s international operations.
Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia and acting Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama led local officials, representatives from the business community, Cebu-based diplomats, and members of the Cebu media in gracing the grand inauguration of the Bombardier Finance Center at the TGU building in Cebu City’s upscale Asiatown IT Park on April 27, 2009.
The search began in August 2008 months after top Bombardier officials mandated the formation of a finance shared service center to reduce cost and increase the quality of financial information.
A team scouted several countries in Europe and Asia. They considered, deliberated and evaluated various qualified places. And Cebu stood out as the best place to combine work and leisure.
“Best tourist attractions, presence of people with good English skills, cost-efficiency and political stability are some of the major factors that led the team to choose the Queen City of the South to be Bombardier’ Transportation’s Global finance service center,” said Kennerth Lundgren, head of the financial services project, change management, ERP and Process Improvement.
An initial 25 Filipinos are now being trained to serve as the finance center staff. Search for competent accountants and finance wizards would continue to complete the planned 150 workforce. After two months of training, they will be brought to the United Kingdom for work shadowing. By October 2009, all of Bombardier’s finance operations will be transferred to Cebu.
Doris Mongaya of PRWorks Inc. pointed out that the Bombardier decision came about even before the onset of the global economic crisis that hit First World countries badly. “This means Cebu has what it takes to compete for the relocation of vital facilities of global giants that now need to streamline operations to increase efficiency.”
PRWorks Inc. is the sister company of the newly-formed Konseptworks that won the event management contract for the grand inauguration of the Bombardier finance center. A result of Mongaya’s partnership with Bong Abela of Concepts and More, the new company focuses on corporate events and marketing for international and national companies looking at the vast market in Cebu and Southern Philippines.
PRWorks Inc., in particular, takes pride in its excellent access to local governments, the local business community, and local media that has made it the favored local partner of Asia’s event and PR giant Teamasia, Globe Telecom, Sanofi-Aventis and SPC Power Corp.
well, there are so many tourist attractions that you find on asia and europe. i would really love to travel a lot ‘;;
You’ll love the Philippines. In fact, many visitors have decided to live here.