Biz Solutions... August 2007
Contact Centres Looking for a location for your regional contact centre? Looking for skilled employees enabling high quality service to your customers? Looking for a favourable business environment that ensures a flexible solution? Have a look at Denmark!
Why Denmark? • Availability of high quality human resources: A skilled and motivated work force • Flexible labour market ensuring fast and economic scalability of Contact Centre activities • Competitive costs given the high level of quality • Presence of native population from all Scandinavian countries and Germany
Denmark is an attractive location for companies that want to balance the demand for cost efficient contact centre activities with the need for a sustained high level of customer service. This can only be obtained by employing people with the right combination of skills. The Danish comparative advantages related to regional contact centre activities are underlined in a benchmark performed by IBM Business Consulting Services. In the benchmark different locations are compared through an evaluation and a weighting of quality and costs parameters. Denmark scores high on the quality side and represents a competitive cost level compared to the quality gained by choosing to locate in Denmark.
They did it... • Dell •3 • Oracle • BASH
Scandinavian Contact Centre Qualitative score
Copenhagen
7,5
Stockholm 6,5 Göteborg Oslo
5,5 110
105
100 95 90 Operating cost index (average = 100)
Availability of high quality human resources The Danish population has excellent foreign language capabilities, which reflects the international outlook of the country. The following numbers underline that it is easy to find multilingual staff in Denmark: • 80% of the Danish workforce speak English • 53% of the Danish workforce speak German • 11% of the Danish workforce speak French
Contact Centres
As to Scandinavian languages, Denmark – and the Copenhagen area in particular – has a high level of native speakers in the local population. Furthermore, the Southern part of Denmark has a high level of native German speaking employees. The Danish workforce is renowned for its motivation and ability to work smart. This is explained in part by the high level of education and low hierarchy in many Danish companies leading to more responsibility of each individual employee. Together, these factors contribute to the creation of a flexible working environment, where every individual takes initiatives and contributes to the optimisation of working processes.
Aalborg
DENMARK
SWEDEN
JUTLAND
Copenhagen
Odense
ZEALAND
FUNEN
GERMANY
Europe’s most flexible labour market Denmark offers a remarkably flexible labour market compared to other European countries measured in terms of practices for labour market regulation, unemployment insurance – and in particular in terms of hiring and firing practices, where Denmark stands out. Thus, in the context of establishing Contact Centre activities the flexible labour market regulations ensure a high level of flexibility in a Contact Centre solution located in Denmark. This means that activities can be smoothly scaled according to customer demand. An attractive location at a major European gateway Being located at the connecting point between Scandinavia and the European mainland Denmark offers an attractive strategic location with easy access to clients and partners all over the continent. The excellent infrastructure has increased the mobility of workforce across the country border between Sweden and Denmark. However, more people cross the bridge from Sweden to work in Denmark than vice versa measured by the number of commuters resident in the two countries. … at competitive costs The two largest contributors to the total annual operating costs of a Contact Centre are labour and property costs. In Denmark wages are relatively high when viewed in isolation – but the remarkably low social security contributions payable to the employees contribute to keeping the costs at a very competitive level compared to other European locations. In an analysis made by DTZ Research where office costs per workplace in 111 markets were compared, Copenhagen came out as one of Europe’s cheapest capitals with costs ranging approx. 20% below average in Western Europe. In the comparison with the other Scandinavian capitals Copenhagen was considerably cheaper. Whether your company considers to relocate, consolidate, set up new production facilities, is on the lookout for new innovation partners or other strategic business solutions in Europe, Invest in Denmark is a good place to begin. We provide customised information and services free of charge and in full confidentiality.
Invest in Denmark 2, Asiatisk Plads DK-1448 Copenhagen K Tel. +45 33 92 11 16 Fax +45 33 92 07 17
The information stated in this fact sheet may contain errors or omissions. Invest in Denmark and our co-operation partners disclaim any and all liability for any loss or damage caused by such errors or omissions.