On June 13th-14th, Łódź hosted the 8th ABSL Conference - the most prestigious business service sector event in the CEE region. We would like to take a moment to summarise its key points.

The Conference gathered nearly 1.100 participants from all over the world - and we would like to express our thanks to all guests who have joined us at the 8th edition of our flagship event in Łódź for those amazing three days.

Our special guest this year was the Right Honourable David Cameron, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (2010-2016) - one of the key influential people of today’s politics and economy. During a moderated Q&A session with Henry Foy, Mr. Cameron answered crucial questions regarding the future of Europe, focusing mostly on relations between Poland and the UK in relation to business and possible resource relocation. This panel was pivotal to the idea behind the Conference: The Old World Disrupted.

Our expert speakers this year focused on the problem of constant change, its effect on business, markets, talent, leadership. Constant shifts in the balance of politics and economy translate directly into our ways of conducting business, we are also influenced by emerging trends, such as robotics, automation of processes and smart world.

Among our key themes were the battle of Humans vs. Robots and Future Technology. Experts such as Aleksandra Przegalińska (MIT) and Joseph Reger (Fujitsu) explained the key notions of today’s industrial revolution. They assured the audience that we should not be afraid of robots, but assimilate with them instead. Despite them overtaking basic tasks, this movement will leave us with free resources to perform more complex tasks that a machine will be unable to do. Meanwhile, software development could move to become a blue-collar work soon, as our needs for developers grow with time.

Aside from the future of markets and ongoing robotic transformations, we also focused on the Future Leaders. Our speakers - among them Zain Wadee (Randstad Sourceright) and Robert Baker (Mercer) discussed the changes that need to happen as the next generation - Millennials - become the most prominent group on the labour market, as well as how inclusion shapes and empowers both the companies and the employees.

Check their presentations below to find out what they think of these challenges!

New ABSL report is now live!

As every year, the Conference saw the premiere of the newest ABSL report: Business Services Sector in Poland. The online version is available for downloading in our Publications.

Below you can find some highlights from the report:

All data for Q1 2017.

ABSL Start-Up Challenge

This year saw the second finale of ABSL Start-Up Challenge, a unique platform for young entrepreneurs to network and cooperate with large corporations. In this edition, we visited 7 Polish cities during the semifinals to pick who will get the chance to present in Łódź.

Among the final seven, ChallengeRocket was chosen as the winner, gaining the opportunity to partake in Polish Tech Days 2017 in London. Another start-up, Scanye won the Public Choice Award by the vote of the audience. P&G award was given to Cognitum, Skanska awarded TakeTask, and finally, the start-up BIN-e was handed the ŁSSE award.