Cebu beats other cities for Bombardier facility

CEBU, Philippines – Cebu City was chosen, among 62 metropolises around the globe, as one of the two locations for the global finance shared services center for accounting and reporting of the multi-national transportation company Bombardier Transportation.

In a recent ceremony, Bombardier Transportation formally opened its Global Finance Shared Service Center for Accounting and Reporting here in Cebu at the 14th floor of the new TGU Tower in Asiatown IT Park with 20 employees that is expected to grow by 150 in 2014.

Bombardier Transportation is a world leading manufacturer based in Canada engaged in innovative transportation solutions from commercial aircraft and business jets to rail transportation equipment, systems and services.

Bombardier general manager and director for finance accounting and reporting Heiko Kafer said that after months of training their local based accountants, Bombardier Transportation will migrate transactional activities in Cebu for the English speaking countries and Asian countries this October while the other one located in Cluj, Romania will service European countries requiring different language capabilities.

He said that the primary objective of moving to a Finance Shared Service Approach is to better focus on internal customers, enhance business support, improve and standardize processes, centralize accounting expertise, improve competitiveness and ensure increased quality of balance sheet and financial results delivered to the market.

Meanwhile, the company’s VP Finance Shared Services, Accounting and Reporting Olivier Guitton underscored that their Finance Shared Service center in Cebu will be sustainable and successful because people are the basis of their excellent delivery of services.

“Cebu was chosen among the 62 cities because in Cebu there is an availability of highly qualified accounting staff at competitive cost who are used to a shared service mentality so we can ensure excellent delivery of services and support for our business for the worldwide market,” said Guitton.

Kafer said that the search for the location of their two Finance Shared Service centers started in August of last year and they have searched cities from all over Europe and Asia.

Among the shortlisted countries included Chinea in India and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia but Cebu was chosen because of its customer-oriented and service oriented culture.

Governor Gwendolyn Garcia said the launching stressed that the choice of Bombardier to locate one of its global financial center here in Cebu shows the continued confidence of foreign investors to Cebu as an area of growth.

The presence of Bombardier Transportation in the country has been started since 1996 as the company landed contract for the signalling system of the Metro Railway Transit (MRT) and now they are targeting several projects in Manila which includes the Line 8 project which runs from North Avenue to the East of Manila for rolling stock or the trains itself and the signalling systems.

They have also supplied Q400 and Q300 commercial aircraft to Philippines Airlines’ low cost segment PAL Express.

Bombardier Transportation has presence in over 60 countries and has so far installed base of over 100, 000 vehicles worldwide.

It offers the broadest range of product portfolio and is recognized as the leader in the global rail sector as well as the aerospace industry.

Its revenues for the fiscal year 2008 was at $17.5 billion in which $9.7 billion or 55 percent was gotten from its aerospace segment and $7.8 billion or 45 percent from its total revenues was taken from its transportation segment.

Bombardier Transportation is traded in the Toronto Stock Exchange and is listed as an index component to the Dow Jones Sustainability World and North America Indexes.